EXCLUSIVE: After supplying the 2023 fall field workplace with $261M together with his Taylor Swift: Eras Tour live performance movie, Sam Wrench is directing a redo of the 1980 United Artists function movie, The Idolmaker for Amazon MGM Studios. The film will rep Grammy nominated and Emmy successful music documentary and dwell occasion filmmaker Wrench’s narrative directing debut.
Friday Evening Lights Emmy winner Jason Katims is writing the script.
Launched in 1980, The Idolmaker was Academy Award nominee Taylor Hackford’s first movie and earned Ray Sharkey a Golden Globe Award for Greatest Actor. The film was primarily based on the lifetime of rock promoter/producer Bob Marcucci, who found, amongst others, Frankie Avalon and Fabian. It was written by Edward Di Lorenzo and produced by Hawk Koch and Gene Kirkwood, the movie counts a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer and in addition starred Tovah Feldshuh, Peter Gallagher, and Paul Land. Kirkwood (Rocky, Grammy Award-winning The Defiant Ones, Get Wealthy or Die Attempting) and Hawk Koch (Wayne’s World, Primal Concern) will return to supply the movie, with Invoice Gerber (A Star is Born) additionally producing.
In Katims’ modern-day reimagining, a singularly proficient musician and equally gifted “idolmaker” navigate the issues of the music trade and the actual world.
Wrench acquired a 2023 Grammy nom for Billie Eilish Dwell at O2 within the Greatest Music Movie slot. He’s additionally directed episodes of American Idol and Rhythm + Circulation. He’s represented by CAA and Yorn Levine.
Katims additionally created NBC’s Parenthood which pumped out 103 episodes. He additionally wrote the close to $200M international grossing Channing Tatum-Rachel McAdams film The Vow. He’s represented by CAA and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.
