Clint Eastwood is planning a remake of A Star Is Born, with Beyonce Knowles in the role previously played by Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland and Janet Gaynor. Eastwood’s film will be the fourth version of the story, which first made it to the screen in 1937.
Beyonce is in talks to play Esther Blodgett, the small-town girl who arrives in Hollywood dreaming of fame. She meets and falls in love with Norman Maine, an alcoholic former matinee idol who guides her to stardom but finds his own career on the wane. The role of Maine is yet to be cast but Robert Downey Jr and Russell Crowe have each been linked to the role.
Knowles is best known as a singer but she proved her acting credentials in Dreamgirls, the 2006 film based on the real-life story of The Supremes.
Warner Bros confirmed that Eastwood, 80, is in negotiations to take on the project. A Star Is Born was last filmed in 1976, with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in the lead roles.
Streisand won an Oscar for the theme tune, Evergreen, but film fans remain divided on its merits. Judy Garland and James Mason starred in the acclaimed 1954 version, which garnered six Oscar nominations and is regularly voted amongst the greatest musicals of all time.
The 1937 original featured Janet Gaynor and Fredric Marsh and won an honorary Academy Award for its use of Technicolour, which was then in its infancy. Eastwood now spends most of his time behind the camera and has expressed a desire to make more films with female leads after the success of Million Dollar Baby, in which Hilary Swank played a boxer. “I’ve always been intrigued by [their] stories,” he said.
“I think women have more of an uphill battle than men have, so it becomes a more dramatic situation.”
