Update: Reps for both actors say this report is untrue. Looks like the author, who also once said Steven Soderbergh was attached to direct, was overstating the case.
“It’s really funny because I have just heard about this for the first time today,” Jolie later confirmed to press at the London premiere of ‘Salt.’ “It’s news to me. I’m flattered I suppose.”Author Andrew O’Hagan has reportedly announced that George Clooney and Angelina Jolie will star as Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe in an adaptation of his 2010 novel, “The Life And Opinions Of Maf The Dog, And Of His Friend Marilyn Monroe.”
O’Hagan unveiled the news at the Edinburgh International Book Festival over the weekend and further noted that the adaptation “will shortly go into production” and presumably joked that it was “not yet known who will be playing Maf the dog.”
The novel follows the story of a Maltese terrier named Maf who became Monroe’s pet after being given to her by Sinatra as a cheer-up present after her break up with Arthur Miller. That two year period saw the dog accompany the starlet in what would eventually become some of pop culture’s most iconic moments in history. Here’s a synopsis of the novel:
In November 1960, Frank Sinatra gave Marilyn Monroe a dog. His name was Maf. He had an instinct for the twentieth century. For politics. For psychoanalysis. For literature. For interior decoration. This is his story.
Maf the dog was with Marilyn for the last two years of her life. Not only a picaresque hero himself, he was also a scholar of the adventuring rogue in literature and art, witnessing the rise of America’s new liberalism, civil rights, the space race, the New York critics, and was Marilyn Monroe’s constant companion.
The story of Maf the dog is a hilarious and highly original peek into the life of a complex canine hero – he was very much a real historical figure, with his license and photographs sold at auction along with Marilyn’s other person affects. Through the eyes of Maf we’re provided with an insight into the life of Monroe herself, and a fascinating take on one of the most extraordinary periods of the twentieth century.
It’s definitely a unique perspective to take on that era, or any for that matter — sounds like an internalized Triumph The Insult Comic Dog meets a Marilyn Monroe biopic? — so we’re not at all surprised a film adaptation is in the works but we’re inclined to take casting news with a grain of salt. Doesn’t it just sound more like fantasy casting? Would Jolie really work as Monroe? And just a throwaway mention in a report from a book festival? Guess, it’ll remain to be seen what transpires from it.
The novel’s release earlier this year was also accompanied by this trailer.