Cobain Movie to Rock WB
by Josh Grossberg
Apr 16, 2004, 1:45 PM PT
The WB has always smelled like teen spirit thanks to Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Angel. Now the Frog is really going grunge, developing a TV movie about the life and death of Kurt Cobain.
The biopic will be based on Charles Cross' unauthorized 2001 book Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, which was purchased by the WB. The network has tapped Robert Munic (They Call Me Sir) to pen the script.
"For our viewers this is the perfect project, and it's a great great story," says Tana Nugent Jamieson, senior VP of longform original programming at the WB. "I really see it as a cautionary tale."
News of the project comes on the heels of the 10th anniversary of the Nirvana singer's suicide on April 5, 1994 at the age of 27.
The story will follow Cobain's life, from his turbulent youth in the logging town of Aberdeen, Washington, to his emergence as the lead singer and guitarist for Nirvana, the band that put "grunge" in the rock lexicon in 1991 with the release of its breakthrough album, Nevermind, and the moshpit anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
The teleflick will also chronicle Cobain's struggles with stardom, his battles with depression and heroin addiction, and his rocky marriage to Courtney Love, then just the obscure singer of a little-known punk-rock outfit called Hole.
As for his gory suicide--Cobain blew his head off with a shotgun at his Seattle home after recovering from an overdose--Jamieson says it will likely be one of the final scenes and will be handled delicately.
Noting the darker details of the musician's life, Jamieson said the network is thinking about tagging a public service announcement at the end of the film urging those suffering from depression to get help (That's probably a good idea, since in the days following Cobain's death, some of his own troubled fans followed suit).
The network has yet to announce a director or who would play Kurt and Courtney in the project.
But to connect with the WB's young audience and reach ratings nirvana, Munic tells the Hollywood Reporter that he'd like to write an edgy movie that won't be "your traditional biopic."
"The storytelling will have a nonlinear style, flashing to different parts of his life out of chronological order," the screenwriter says in the trade paper.
Jamieson says that what will end up on the small screen will be the unified vision of both the WB and the writer.
If all goes as planned, expect the Cobain biopic to premiere on the WB sometime next season.


I wonder whose gonna play Kurt role
by Josh Grossberg
Apr 16, 2004, 1:45 PM PT
The WB has always smelled like teen spirit thanks to Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Angel. Now the Frog is really going grunge, developing a TV movie about the life and death of Kurt Cobain.
The biopic will be based on Charles Cross' unauthorized 2001 book Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, which was purchased by the WB. The network has tapped Robert Munic (They Call Me Sir) to pen the script.
"For our viewers this is the perfect project, and it's a great great story," says Tana Nugent Jamieson, senior VP of longform original programming at the WB. "I really see it as a cautionary tale."
News of the project comes on the heels of the 10th anniversary of the Nirvana singer's suicide on April 5, 1994 at the age of 27.
The story will follow Cobain's life, from his turbulent youth in the logging town of Aberdeen, Washington, to his emergence as the lead singer and guitarist for Nirvana, the band that put "grunge" in the rock lexicon in 1991 with the release of its breakthrough album, Nevermind, and the moshpit anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
The teleflick will also chronicle Cobain's struggles with stardom, his battles with depression and heroin addiction, and his rocky marriage to Courtney Love, then just the obscure singer of a little-known punk-rock outfit called Hole.
As for his gory suicide--Cobain blew his head off with a shotgun at his Seattle home after recovering from an overdose--Jamieson says it will likely be one of the final scenes and will be handled delicately.
Noting the darker details of the musician's life, Jamieson said the network is thinking about tagging a public service announcement at the end of the film urging those suffering from depression to get help (That's probably a good idea, since in the days following Cobain's death, some of his own troubled fans followed suit).
The network has yet to announce a director or who would play Kurt and Courtney in the project.
But to connect with the WB's young audience and reach ratings nirvana, Munic tells the Hollywood Reporter that he'd like to write an edgy movie that won't be "your traditional biopic."
"The storytelling will have a nonlinear style, flashing to different parts of his life out of chronological order," the screenwriter says in the trade paper.
Jamieson says that what will end up on the small screen will be the unified vision of both the WB and the writer.
If all goes as planned, expect the Cobain biopic to premiere on the WB sometime next season.
