If you’ve been following Bryan Singer’s directorial slate with any interest over the last few years, you’ll know that for some time now he’s been toying with making The Mayor Of Castro Street, the story of the assassination of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay elected official in America, and lost his life because of it.
However, every time some progress has been made on the piece, a comic book blockbuster has reared its super-powered head. However, it now seems that Singer may have gotten the kick up the arse he needed to move Castro Street into production: for Gus Van Sant has just attached himself to a rival Milk movie, which looks like coming together quite quickly.
Van Sant’s project is currently untitled, but it’s based on a spec script by Dustin Lance Black, a writer on HBO’s Big Love, which will be shopped around to studios next week. Van Sant had, at one point, been attached to The Mayor Of Castro Street, which has been knocking around Hollywood for 15 years, going so far as to write an early draft. So it’s clearly a subject close to his heart.
Singer, meanwhile, has been linked with The Mayor Of Castro Street for the last two years, but obviously Superman Returns duty intervened. Now, though, Warner Independent Pictures are close to agreeing a co-financing deal with Participant Productions, which will allow Singer’s old screenwriter of choice, Chris McQuarrie, to write a final draft.
Whether The Mayor Of Castro Street will make it into cinemas ahead of Van Sant’s project is open to many factors, not least of which is Singer’s WWII movie with Tom Cruise, which may or may not be called Valkyrie and which is also written by McQuarrie (along with Nathan Alexander), set to start filming on July 8. But it seems likely that the Milk movie will be Singer’s follow-up to that.
Although, when it comes to rival projects battling it out to be first onto the screen, Harvey Milk biopics are a world away from Dante’s Peak vs Volcano, Robin Hood vs Prince Of Thieves, or Armageddon vs Deep Impact. But recently we had two competing Truman Capote projects, so it’s not always about blockbusters. And besides, Milk’s story is certainly worth telling. The Cliff Notes version is that he was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in 1977, campaigned vigorously for gay rights and was then assassinated, along with San Fran mayor, George Moscone, by a disgruntled supervisor, Dan White, in 1978, following White’s resignation from the Board Of Supervisors. White tried to change his mind, but Milk – among others – lobbied against it, tipping White over the edge. On November 27, 1978, White shot and killed Moscone, then Milk, who has now become something of a martyr and certainly a figurehead for the gay rights movement.
For a much fuller version of the story, pick up Randy Shilts’ The Mayor Of Castro Street, the book on which Singer’s movie will be based.
So, where does this leave the Superman Returns sequel, though? Word has it that it’s still set for a June 2009 release, and in theory Singer can complete both the WWII Project and Castro Street – if it gets the go-ahead – and then move onto Superman, but it’s going to be tight. Will he leave the project? Will Warners push it back to accommodate him? Will they need to? We don’t have any answers, dear readers, but thanks for reading this far to see if we had!