It’s rare today for an art world star to become a recognized name in mainstream popular culture, but Keith Haring, whose bold, graphic, cartoon-like illustrations went from subway station graffiti to high-end galleries and, after his untimely AIDS death in 1990 at age 31, to museum retrospectives, achieved it both before and after he died. Now filmmaker Andrew Haigh (“All of Us Strangers”) will take Brad Gooch’s biography, “Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring,” and adapt it for television as writer and director. It’s in the early stages, so there are no details besides the deal, but Haigh is a great choice to adapt the story of the young artist who personified the cool, post-Warhol, downtown New York art, fashion, music and film world of the ’80s, a saga deeply connected to that era’s terrifying AIDS crisis. Now, who’ll play him? And Basquiat? And Madonna? And Andy? More to come…
Jeffrey Wright and Octavia Spencer buy into ‘Death of a Salesman’
Playwright Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) has a new project in the works, a new film adaptation of one of the great works of the American theater, “Death of a Salesman.” He’ll co-adapt Arthur Miller’s legendary 1949 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play with filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu (“Till,” “Clemency”), who’ll direct. Mounted on stage and brought to screens big and small many, many times featuring some of acting’s great names, in this remake, Jeffrey Wright — Emmy winner for HBO’s version of “Angels in America” — will play titular salesman Willy Loman, an aging man whose career, family and life haven’t gone as planned. Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer will play his beleaguered wife Linda. This is certain to be a big award season release for Focus Features/Amblin, probably in 2026/27. More casting and production news will follow as it develops.
Queer ‘Boots’ on the ground at Netflix
“The Pink Marine” is the name of Greg Cope White’s memoir of being young, gay and a U.S. Marine in the late 1970s, a time well before the nominal Clinton-era compromise of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (a measure that, for the record, didn’t work at all to protect LGBTQ+ service members). Now his story, fictionalized and updated to the early 1990s, is coming to Netflix in the limited series “Boots.” Adapted from the book by series creator Andy Parker (“Tales of the City”), the project stars gay actor Miles Heizer (“Love, Simon”) in the lead, alongside Vera Farmiga (“The Conjuring” franchise) and “Vampire Academy” co-star Kieron Moore. Meanwhile, the supporting cast includes up-and-coming queer actors Max Parker and Angus O’Brien. Expect a lot of era-specific f-slurs when it hits Netflix in October.
‘Christmas Karma’ is when Boy George ghosts you
Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is everyone’s favorite public domain IP, and its infinite adaptability will get another variation this year with “Christmas Karma,” courtesty of “Bend It Like Beckham” filmmaker Gurinder Chadha. Set in contemporary London and starring Kunal Nayyar (“The Big Bang Theory”) as a Scrooge-alike who encounters the traditional ghosts — played here by “Downton Abbey” patriarch Hugh Bonneville, Eva Longoria, Billy Porter and, as the threatening Ghost of Christmas Future, Boy George — it’s being described as a drama in spite of the cast’s potential for camping it up. Another twist? It’s a musical, stepping into the tradition of 1970’s “Scrooge” and 1992’s “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” Big cinematic shoes to fill, but when Christmas is concerned, one lives in hope. “Karma” comes to theaters in November.
Romeo San Vicente is your Santa Baby.