David O. Russell really has had one hell of a comeback year. Garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Director this year for “The Fighter” and riding a wave of critical acclaim, Russell has been picking up projects left and right over the past six months or so (and those are just a few of many he’s got cooking in various stages).
Deadline reports that he could be adding one more to his plate if the deal goes through. Fox Searchlight is looking to buy a pitch package with Russell directing a biopic about Russ Meyer, the maker of B-movies like “Super Vixens” and “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.” Meyer started making his exploitation films in the ’60s, right at the beginning of the sexual revolution. He was a jack of all trades — he wrote, directed, produced, financed and often distributed his own films — and placed beautiful women with big breasts in central roles. His story would undoubtedly be a fascinating and very colorful one.
The script will be written by Merritt Johnson, a talented television writer of the award-winning HBO miniseries “Temple Grandin” and many episodes of their brilliant “In Treatment.” He also wrote the screenplay for “Lovelace,” one of the two biopics in production about the porn star Linda Lovelace (this one, not the Lindsey Lohan/Malin Akerman one). Johnson has grown in favor as a screenwriter after serving as Russell’s assistant on “Three Kings.”
Fox Searchlight is still trying to work out the deal, so nothing is set in stone yet. They first have to secure the rights to Jimmy McDonough‘s biography “Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film.” So yet another iron in the growing fire for David O. Russell with still no firm word on what will come next for the helmer.