James Dean biopic about late actor’s gay college romance in the works

A film is being made that will explore movie icon James Dean’s private life, including an alleged gay relationship with his college roommate.

Surviving James Dean will be based on William Bast’s 2006 memoir of the same name, and will be directed by Guy Guido (Madonna and the Breakfast Club), who has also written the film’s screenplay.

Bast’s book details his own relationship with the star, who he met while studying drama in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. The two became friends and roommates, and eventually started a romantic relationship, with Bast claiming that they agreed to keep the nature of their relationship private to avoid harming Dean’s career.

Dean died in a car accident on September 30, 1955 at the age of 24. He only had three credited film roles, two of which – Rebel Without A Cause and Giant – were released posthumously.

Guido has issued a statement about the project, explaining his interest in the subject matter. “I have been a fan and historian of James Dean since I was 18 years old,” he said, “so I knew about his ‘friend’ Willie, even when information about their relationship was straight-washed by the Hollywood machine. As a filmmaker, I love telling the story of a celebrity’s life in their coming-of-age period. As a gay man, I was particularly drawn to Bast’s unique story.”

No casting choices have yet been announced for the film, but Guido has expressed his preference for the lead role. “I am obsessed with getting the look right when it comes to casting and directing a film about a famous person,” he said (via The Hollywood Reporter). “I want people to feel as if they are watching the real James Dean on the screen.”

A number of films have been made about Dean already, including the 2001 TV film James Dean, starring James Franco, and 2015’s Life, where Dane DeHaan’s Dean forms a friendship with the photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson).

Michael Mann had intended to directed a James Dean biopic in the 1990s with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, but it did not get made,

In 2019, plans were revealed to have a CGI version of Dean appear in Finding Jack, a new film about the Vietnam War, although it has yet to come to fruition.

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