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Paramount Pictures and Amblin Partners made it official today what Deadline exclusively reported five days ago: That the Leonard Bernstein estate has granted music and life rights for the biopic about the legendary composer, a project which Bradley Cooper is prepping to direct, produce and star in.

Producers Fred Berner and Amy Durning have been working over the last decade to secure the West Side Story composer’s rights. Spotlight Oscar winner Josh Singer wrote the script, and Berner, Durning, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Kristie Macosko Krieger are producing alongside Cooper who will produce through his Joint Effort banner. Cooper is also working with the producers and Singer on the script.

Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein said in a statement: “In our father’s centennial year celebration, we are delighted to form an exclusive and unprecedented partnership with Paramount Pictures, Amblin and this extraordinary group of...

Exclusive: Paramount Pictures and Amblin will c0-finance Bernstein, a film about iconic composer Leonard Bernstein that Bradley Cooper will star in and direct, and he will write the script with Josh Singer, who shared the Best Original Screenplay Oscar with Tom McCarthy for Spotlight. Cooper, through his Joint Effort banner, will produce with Fred Berner, Amy Durning, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Paramount/Amblin have confirmed and said they are finalizing exclusive rights with the Bernstein estate.

This becomes the second film with towering creatives taking on the life of Bernstein and his rise from prodigy to such acclaimed works as West Side Story. Deadline last week revealed The American, a Bernstein film that will star Jake Gyllenhaal with Cary Joji Fukunaga directing a script that Michael Mitnick wrote from the Humphrey Burton biography Leonard Bernstein. That film is one of the hot titles here in the Cannes market,...

Greenlit means a project is officially a go, so all you have to do is follow these leads to stay up to date. You never know where you’ll find an opportunity to land an audition! “The American”Following his run in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” in which audiences learned the extent of his musical ability, Jake Gyllenhaal will be moving onto the next musical project. He will be playing composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in the Cary Fukunaga-helmed “The American.” Adapted from the Humphrey Burton biography “Leonard Bernstein,” “The American” will follow Bernstein’s rise from 25-year-old sensation of the New York Philharmonic to American music icon. There’s no casting director formally attached to the project yet, but Fukunaga could return to “Beasts of No Nation” CD Harrison Nesbit or “Jane Eyre” collaborator Nina Gold. “Dali Land”Director Mary Harron will always hold...

Recently, we were excited by the first look for director Cary Fukunaga’s upcoming Netflix series “Maniac,” and we wondered what was next for the filmmaker. Well, now we know, and the project is shaping up to be something special.

Fukunaga is teaming up with actor Jake Gyllenhaal for a film titled “The American.” Gyllenhaal, who is also producing, will star as the famed musical legend, and “West Side Story” composer, Leonard Bernstein in a story based on the biography by author Humphrey Burton.

Jake Gyllenhaal has been cast to play the famed musical composer, Leonard Bernstein in an upcoming biopic of his life titled, The American.

The film will be adapted from the Humphrey Burton biography on Bernstein with a script by Michael Mitnick. True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga will take the helm on the project.

Structured in five movements, like a symphony, The American follows Bernstein from conducting the New York Philharmonic at the age of 25 and through a meteoric rise to fame, all while struggling both personally and publicly to be everything that everyone expected him to be, most of all himself.

Also in the news – Halle Berry eyed for John Wick 3 role

“Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found his way into my life and heart through West Side Story when I was a kid,” Gyllenhaal stated. “But as I got older and started to learn about the scope of his work,...

Jake Gyllenhaal is starring in The American, a Leonard Bernstein movie biopic that Cary Fukunaga will produce in addition to directing. The film is based on Humphrey Burton’s written 1994 biography Leonard Bernstein and will begin production this fall, with Bron Studios (Tully) providing the financing. Sierra/Affinity will be selling the international distribution rights to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival next week, with Endeavor Content handling the U.S. rights.

Jake Gyllenhaal will portray “On the Waterfront” and “West Side Story” composer Leonard Bernstein in “The American,” the next film from director/producer Cary Fukunaga. Nine Stories, the Oscar-nominated actor’s (“Brokeback Mountain”) production company, will produce the biopic with financier Bron Studios. International sales will commence at this month’s Cannes Film Market; shooting starts this fall.

A Massachusetts-born Harvard graduate, Bernstein was just 25 when he was named Assistant Conductor for the New York Philharmonic, where he later served as Music Director for 11 years. He oversaw Carnegie Hall and New York Symphony Orchestra concerts, plus others in London, Milan, Tel Aviv, and more. During his career, Bernstein’s televised performances won 11 Emmy Awards, plus a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1985. “On the Waterfront” earned him an Oscar nomination. Five days after he retired from conducting in October 1990, Bernstein died from mesothelioma at age 72.

“Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found...

True Detective helmer Cary Fukunaga and Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal are teaming for a new movie based on the life of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein. Gyllenhaal is set to produce and star in The American as Bernstein with Fukunaga producing and directing. The screenplay comes from Michael Mitnick (Vinyl) and is based on the biography Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Burton. Here's the official plot synopsis from the press release, "In five movements, like a symphony, “The American” follows Leonard Bernstein from conducting the New York Philharmonic at the impressive age of 25 through the meteoric rise to fame, …...

Jake Gyllenhaal is set to produce and star as Leonard Bernstein in “The American,” with Cary Joji Fukunaga directing and producing.

Bron Studios will produce and back the film, which begins principal photography in the fall. Sierra/Affinity will handle international sales of the project during the Cannes Film Market.

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The screenplay, from Michael Mitnick, is based on the biography “Leonard Bernstein” by Humphrey Burton. In five movements, like a symphony, “The American” follows Leonard Bernstein from conducting the New York Philharmonic at the impressive age of 25 through the meteoric rise to fame, all while struggling both personally and publicly to be everything that everyone expected him to be, most of all himself.

The project is an original idea, developed by Nine Stories, Gyllenhaal’s and Riva Marker’s New York-based production company. Gyllenhaal and Marker will produce alongside Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert, Fukunaga’s Parliament of Owls and Martha Parker.

Jake Gyllenhaal will play legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein in The American from director Cary Fukunaga. 

The feature, which is set to begin production in the fall, is based on Humphrey Burton's biography, and will follow Bernstein's meteoric rise after conducting the New York Philharmonic at 25, all the while struggling with the fame of a career that included penning the score for On the Waterfront and the ground-breaking musical West Side Story. Michael Mitnick wrote the screenplay.

Gyllenhaal will also produce through his Nine Stories banner, along with producing partner Riva Marker. Aaron L. Gilbert will produce for Bron Studios,...

Exclusive: In what shapes up as another very strong Cannes title for next week, Jake Gyllenhaal is set to produce and star as Leonard Bernstein in The American, with Cary Joji Fukunaga directing and producing. Bron Studios will produce and finance a film that begins principal photography in the fall. Sierra/Affinity will sell international territories and Endeavor Content is repping North American rights.

Michael Mitnick adapted the script from the Humphrey Burton biography Leonard Bernstein. Structured in five movements, like a symphony, The American follows Bernstein from conducting the New York Philharmonic at the age of 25 and through a meteoric rise to fame, all while struggling both personally and publicly to be everything that everyone expected him to be, most of all himself.

The film was developed from scratch by Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker through their Gotham-based Nine Stories production banner. It marks another Nine Stories-produced vehicle for Gyllenhaal to play a non-fiction character,...

Jake Gyllenhaal will play legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein in <em>The American</em> from director Cary Fukunaga. 

The feature, which is set to begin production in the fall, is based on Humphrey Burton's biography, and will follow Bernstein's meteoric rise after conducting the New York Philharmonic at 25, all the while struggling with the fame of a career that included the score for <em>On the Waterfront</em> and the ground-breaking musical <em>West Side Story</em>. Michael Mitnick wrote the screenplay.

Gyllenhaal will also produce through his Nine Stories banner, along with producing partner Riva Marker. Aaron L. Gilbert will produce for Bron ...

This cleverly edited collection of letters reveals an attractive and energetic man. But Bernstein now has a mixed musical reputation – even if West Side Story will live forever

Like many figures eminent in their time through a grasp of the zeitgeist and a powerful personality, Leonard Bernstein's reputation has not worn well. Future generations may wonder why it was Bernstein who conducted the Berlin concerts in December 1989 to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall. He had no connection with Berlin, and had conducted the Berlin Philharmonic only once, in 1979. There was, too, a very obvious candidate in Kurt Masur, the great conductor who had been involved in the Leipzig uprising. But the job fell to Bernstein, who had never even lived in the continent whose unification he was celebrating. No one seemed puzzled: it was a case of the triumph of the overwhelming personality.

That personality is apparent...

John Bridcut on Ken Russell, a film-maker who 'resisted the facts getting in the way of his visual imagination'

The wild visual imagination of Ken Russell brought classical music to a whole new audience, and made his name notorious in respectable musical circles. His feature films about composers went straight for the jugular – sometimes almost literally, as in his blood-soaked Mahler. He loved the music, but he also loved the sex. He sold the idea of The Music Lovers on the basis that it was a story about a nymphomaniac who fell in love with a homosexual, and sure enough the film opens in a bedroom, with an unbridled romp between Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky and Christopher Gable as his lover.

His films on Liszt, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Wagner all involved sexual fantasy, to the dismay and outrage of people who took the music rather more seriously. Each one made headlines,...