The Oscar winning writer for Milk, Dustin Lance Black is set to write a a biopic based on the life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI. Pajiba has reported that the biopic is being developed by Universal Pictures and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment. No director has been attached as yet but with Black on board it should not take long for this film to begin production.
Black’s appointment as writer for this Hoover biopic is not unsurprising. As /Film has noted, Black is very interested in a positive representation of gay culture through which young gay men and women can exist in an environment that allows them to come out safely. Hoover was reportedly a cross-dresser and according to some also a homosexual. With such material at hand, Black’s representation of this within the biopic could possibly another remarkably enlightening film.
Hoover has already been portrayed by Billy Crudup in Public Enemies. Although the film was not a financial success, this biopic may prove otherwise with its story covering a greater extent of the FBI Director’s career, beginning from the founding of his organization in 1935. He made the FBI an efficient crime-fighting organization through the now famous method of harassing dissenters and building secret files on politicians. He is most often associated with his role in fighting the gangster wars in the 1930’s and, later, the Mafia.
At the moment Black is currently in post-production on What’s Wrong with Virginia, a drama he wrote and directed starring Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris.
Do you think Dustin Lance Black is the best choice to write a Hoover Biopic?