At the junket for The Lucky One, screenwriter Will Fetters told CraveOnline that Clint Eastwood’s A Star is Born remake is really about Kurt Cobain, if he had lived. Specifically, the Norman Maine character.
“I think I’ve reinvented the Norman Maine character, the lead,” Fetters said. “I wanted to do ‘A Star is Born’ because I’m a huge Kurt Cobain fan. That was like my Kennedy assassination when I was a teenager. When he died it was a huge horrible thing. So I approached ‘A Star is Born,’ for me the framework was all right, if Kurt Cobain never got to go Unplugged and survived and its 20 years later and its now, and he wanted to try to do that album with that understanding as this grunge icon. That’d be tough to get done if he was past his prime, no longer selling, how does he get that album?
Warner Bros. has been eyeing Tom Cruise to headline the film and he would appear opposite the previously-announced Beyoncé.
Eastwood’s version will mark the fourth big-screen iteration of the film. William A. Wellman directed the 1937 original with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. The 1954 George Cukor is probably the best known, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. 1976 saw Frank Pierson tackle an updated version with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
