Bradley Cooper is in talks to make his directing debut on the long-gestating remake of A Star is Born, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
If Cooper signs on the dotted line he will replace Clint Eastwood, his director on the US box-office smash American Sniper. There are no casting details for the current iteration, but Eastwood had once proposed a version starring Beyoncé Knowles in the female lead and Cooper himself had previously been mentioned as a contender for the male lead.
Hollywood delivered three different takes on A Star is Born during the 20th century. Eastwood’s version was reportedly based on the 1976 musical version, which cast Barbra Streisand alongside Kris Kristofferson and moved the story from the film industry to the music business. But Cooper’s take is said to cleave closer to the original eight-times Oscar-nominated 1937 version of the film, which starred Fredric March as an ageing, booze-soaked Hollywood actor and Janet Gaynor as the bright young thing he takes under his wing. The romantic drama was also remade in 1954 as a musical, with James Mason and Judy Garland in the leads.
Eastwood had been trying to get a new version off the ground since 2011. The project was first announced a year earlier with Russell Crowe reported to be joining Beyoncé in the cast. While Hollywood has procrastinated about returning A Star Is Born to the big screen, the French film The Artist became the first silent movie in more than 80 years to win an Oscar in 2012 after adopting a similar storyline.
Cooper has moved into the Hollywood A-list in recent years after picking up three consecutive Oscar nominations: two for his turns in the David O Russell films Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, and one this year for American Sniper. He will next star in Russell’s Joy, a biopic of the Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano which stars Russell regular Jennifer Lawrence in the lead.
American Sniper, in which Cooper played US Navy Seal Chris Kyle, is currently the highest-grossing film of 2014 in North America - thanks largely to the support of patriotic cinemagoers – and has taken $528.2m globally.
