Ridley Scott To Direct Paramount’s Bee Gees Movie From GK FIlms

EXCLUSIVE: With their Bob Marley movie, One Love, opening this weekend, Paramount Pictures is now moving fast on another high profile biopic on popular music group, looking to have found an A-list director to lead the project. While a deal isn’t done, sources tell Deadline that Ridley Scott is in negotiations to direct the untitled Bee Gees movie for Paramount. Scott will produce alongside producing partner Michael Pruss of Scott Free, Graham King through his GK Films banner and Stacey Snider.

Paramount Pictures is distributing the film worldwide with Amblin and SISTER having the right to co-finance. Barry Gibb is executive producing. John Logan wrote the script.

While this isn’t the typical film Scott is known for, several factors came into play that led to the studio pursuing him and the Oscar-nominated director agreeing to come on board. First, Scott recently wrapped production on his highly-anticipated sequel to his smash hit Gladiator and according to sources, early footage has blown execs away. Scott is known for finding his follow-up projects quickly and once production wrapped last month, the studio was quick to get the latest draft of the film in front of film before he found that next film.

As for Scott, the director has a long standing link to the legendary group going all the way back to when he was trying to launch his directing career and that connection is the group’s longtime manager at the time, Robert Stigwood. The music mogul had been managing the group since the sixties and played a big part with their resurgence in the 70s during the Disco while at the same time getting into the movie producing business. Stigwood would put Scott on a medieval film Castle Accident that would star the three brothers. Ultimately, the film never came together and Scott would go on to direct The Duelist instead but that desire to tell some sort of story on the group remind and now nearly 50 years later he has that chance for things to come full circle.

This also marks a reunion for Scott and Logan who worked together on Gladiator and Alien: Covenant as well as with Logan and King who worked together on Rango, The Aviator and the upcoming Michael Jackson movie.

Paramount got life rights to the Gibb family estate in 2019, and the rights to use their classic songs in a movie that could very well follow the template of the Best Picture-nominated blockbuster Bohemian Rhapsody, because the songs are so well crafted, with exhilarating falsettos.

The Bee Gees had worldwide sales of more than 220 million records, establishing them as one of the biggest-selling groups of all time. While Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb first began performing together in the late 1950s with folk and soft rock, their popularity mushroomed after they wrote songs for Saturday Night Fever that fueled the popularity of disco and led to one of the top-selling albums ever, earning them five Grammys including Album of the Year. Even though the soaring success made them world famous, rich and an indelible part of the ’70s zeitgeist, their position as the symbol of disco put them unexpectedly on their heels when there was an eventual backlash to the whole polyester vibe.

When Maurice Gibb died suddenly in January 2003 at the age of 53, the remaining brothers retired the group’s name after 45 years of work. They re-formed in 2009, but Robin died three years later at age 62 and that has left Barry Gibb to spread the band’s legacy.

Up next for Scott, is that Gladiator sequel which is set to bow Nov. 22, 2024 and stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal. He is repped by WME.