Coming off a year that included films from Greta Gerwig and David Michôd (as well as another that shall not be named), Timothée Chalamet is gearing up for a major 2020 with roles in two of the year’s most-anticipated films: Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. He’s now set for another major lead performance that will find him playing one of the most iconic artists of all-time.
Deadline reports that the Call Me by Your Name star will lead a new Bob Dylan film directed by James Mangold, who certainly has experience in the musical biopic genre after Walk the Line. Backed by Searchlight Pictures, the film–which is untitled but is being loosely referred to as Going Electric-would depict Dylan’s time when he ditched his acoustic guitar and, with some backlash from his fervent fans, went fully into rock ‘n’ roll, shocking audiences at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965.
In a rare occurrence, Dylan himself is actually working with the creative team on the project, which has been fast-tracked for a likely shoot this summer, which means we could see this film in theaters as soon as 2021. Coming off of Ford v. Ferrari, Mangold is rewriting a script by the great Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York, The Age of Innocence) and with Dylan and his team in collaboration, rights to his music are part of the production, but it’s not yet known if Chalamet, who is currently taking guitar lessons, will sing.
Chalamet surely has the looks to pull off Dylan, but we’ll be curious to see what new ground Mangold can cover after Todd Haynes’ stellar, ambitious I’m Not There. Curiously, Chalamet’s collaborator Luca Guadagnino is also developing a Bob Dylan project, adapting his iconic 1975 album Blood on the Tracks into a feature film. But with no new updates on that project in the last year, this one will certainly hit screens first.
As we await more details, check out a clip from Dylan at Newport in 1965.