"Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner is poised to take helming duties on "Playboy", Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment's biopic of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.
- Jun 25, 2007
AceShowbiz - Stepping into the territory he never lands before in filmmaking, Brett Ratner is about to direct a biographical feature based on the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner at Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, Variety has reported.
Simply entitled "Playboy", the project will be produced by Brian Grazer and gets its script penned by John Hoffman, who most recently wrote "Queen of the Jews", a biopic of scandal-scarred former Miss America Bess Myerson. Hefner is learned to have given approval on the take last week during a meeting at the Playboy Mansion.
"Hef came from a puritanical upbringing and reinvented himself to be the godfather of the sexual revolution," Ratner told Daily Variety. "He broke all kinds of taboos, especially in sexuality. I want to show it all, from the First Amendment struggles to his first orgy to the stroke in the 1980s that almost killed him."
Rights to turn Hefner's life into the big screen was optioned by Grazer several years ago with "8 Mile" scribe Scott Silver trying to work on the project as a musical and Oliver Stone developing some drafts. It was not until the latter took his departure from the flick to helm "Jawbreaker" that Ratner was then approached to fill in the helmer's chair.
