Don Cheadle to direct and star in Miles Davis biopic, rights secured to use Miles music in film

[Anthony Soprano]

Exclusive: Cheadle Takes on "Miles"

Posted Dec 4th 2006 3:43PM by Claude Brodesser-Akner
Filed under: Movies, City Of Industry

http://www.tmz.com/2006/12/04/exclusive-cheadle-takes-on-miles/



Breaking News: TMZ has learned that Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda") plans to direct and star in "Miles Davis," a biopic of the legendary jazz innovator. What's more, Cheadle has hired the Oscar-nominated screenwriting and producing duo, Chris Wilkinson and Steve Rivele ("Nixon"), a pair of lit heavyweights who adapted the life story of boxing's greatest heavyweight, Muhammad Ali, for Michael Mann's "Ali."

Himself a devotee of boxing, Davis would likely have approved. When Miles was making landmark jazz fusion recordings like "Bitches Brew" and "In a Silent Way," he was also contributing extensively to the soundtrack of a 1970 documentary about legendary African-American pugilist, Jack Johnson.

The Davis project has been an idea held dear by Cheadle for the last half dozen years, but until now, a music rights issue threatened to block its progress to the screen. No more. Producer Cary Brokaw recently enlisted the aid former Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman John Calley to lock up the rights to much of Davis' Columbia Records catalogue, which is owned by Sony BMG. Calley and Brokaw collaborated on the 2004's feature "Closer," an adaptation of Patrick Marber's stage play. Moving highbrow material from stage to screen is Brokaw's specialty; he won an Emmy in 2001 for Best Made for Television Movie with his adaptation of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, "Wit," and a 2003 Emmy for producing the HBO miniseries, "Angels in America," based on Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-winner.

Brokaw will produce "Miles Davis" with Cheadle, Wilkinson and Rivele, and others. Insiders say the plan calls for the movie to be independently financed, with the possibility of taking it to a studio for distribution. It's exactly the sort of complex drama studios have all but abandoned making these days: Davis' persona was notoriously abstruse and recondite: Addicted to heroin early in his career and an avid user of recreational pharmaceuticals for much of his adult life, Davis could be confrontational with audiences and forbidding with journalists. Nonetheless, he still managed to reform jazz three times -- changing bebop into modal jazz and modal into fusion -- and, musically speaking, never once looked back.

[KT2000]

1. This should be good

anything that Don Cheadle does is good but if he is in charge of this one it should be really good.

And Miles Davis - any light that can be shed on this unique man would be welcomed!

[Bullwinkle925]

2. Wow - I'm there!!

Love Cheadle - I'm sure the film will be magnificent. What a story to be told.

[Alexander]

3. The biopic is now the new disaster film.

However, since it's Miles Davis, I'm still going to see it.

I hope it's good.

[enigmatic]

4. Cheadle is going to be AWESOME as Miles

I can't wait for this; this might be the first film I'll see on it's opening night ever, I think..

[WritingIsMyReligion]

5. I really hope this works.

I liked Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda, but I hope he can pull off even a semblance of Miles. I don't think any actor could fully "get" all of Miles--he's too fucking weird, in the genius sense of that word--but I hope Cheadle gets at least some of the dude.

That said, if this biopic blows, I will be seriously pissed. It's impossible to do anything to Miles or his memory to tarnish him--like all jazzers, he exists in his own little sphere that is so much the world that it is nearly untarnishable, and jazz is built on change anyway: Miles certainly never feared innovation. But still.

:grr:

:P

[LostinVA]

6. I love Don Cheadle (he should have won the Oscar) -- yay!

[Bassic]

7. Oh man, I can't wait for this movie.

I love Miles Davis.

[Lautremont]

8. Cheadle will be perfect for Miles.

This is one of those biopics that seem to have the elements in place. I really hope it turns out to be a little more adventurous than most. Ray, Walk the Line, even going back to La Bamba and Lady Sings the Blues: most biopics are just dressed-up TV movies, all exactly the same. They tell you too much and not enough at the same time.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

9. I always wanted to write a script about Miles Davis.

Coincidentally, I always thought Don Cheadle would be perfect for the role.

[LynneSin]

10. Cheadle has to be one of my favorite actors; hopefully this will get his Oscar

The man is so on with just about any roll he plays and made me bawl like a baby in Hotel Rwanda

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

12. What? No response to my fantasy league thread?

:D

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Don Cheadle rules.

This is going to be a good movie. Well, at least the acting will be good. Great acting didn't save Ray from being a horrible film.

[Anthony Soprano]

14. Hard to fit a lifetime into a two hour block...

...a filmmaker pretty much has to grab one strong angle and run with it.

I think that's why "Walk The Line" was so successful, other than the simple fact that Joaquin Phoenix was right for the role. By narrowing the central focus to the relationship between Johnny Cash and June Carter, all of the other storytelling elements supported the central theme. It wasn't as if you had twenty different stories all fighting for the viewer's attention.

I have no doubt that Cheadle can nail Miles in the same way that Phoenix nailed Cash. The challenge is going to be "what's the story?"

In the same way that Bob Dylan was demonized by the folk crowd for "going electric," Miles took substantial heat for making the leap from "My Funny Valentine" to "Bitches Brew"...maybe that's the story. Maybe the vision and the fact that it can't be defined (and Miles probably couldn't have defined it either).

But he will have to pick one story that can sink into a viewer's consciousness over the course of the 2 hours. If he tries to tell too many, he won;t succeed in telling any at all.

:toast:

[jobycom]

13. ANything that gets Cheadle in front of or behind a camera is good to me.

I even liked his NFL commercials.

[tigereye]

15. he sounds like a great choice!

wonderful.

And welcome to DU, fellow jazz lover!

[SteppingRazor]

16. If Miles Davis was still alive...

he'd beat the living shit out of everyone involved. But what the hell, I'll still wind up seeing it.