Cut! Mystery as major Dusty Springfield biopic binned
BOND girl Gemma Arterton said she was ‘excited’ but also ‘ terrified’ when she was cast as late 1960s icon Dusty Springfield in a film about the legendary pop singer’s colourful life.
Now, however, I can reveal that the film has been scrapped after the director, Phyllis Nagy, whose screenplay for Carol was nominated for an Oscar in 2016, pulled out of the project amid great mystery.
‘ Phyllis is no longer developing the project,’ confirms a spokesman for Nagy, who was also due to write the screenplay.
It’s highly unusual for films to be cancelled once the casting and other details have been announced.
The producers, Number 9 Films, which also made Carol, starring Cate Blanchett, said in 2018 that So Much Love would be set in 1968 when, at the peak of her
popularity, London- born Springfield travelled to Tennessee to record the album Dusty In Memphis. Her hits included I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself and Son Of A Preacher Man.
‘I have been an admirer of Dusty Springfield since I was a teenager: her effortless
husky voice, the way she conveyed emotion through music, how she helped bring Motown to the UK,’ Arterton, 36, said. ‘Dusty was ahead of her time in many ways. I simply cannot wait to play her.’
Springfield’s career was later blighted by alcoholism and self-harm, but she made a comeback in collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys.
A Number 9 Films spokesman confirms: ‘Sadly, we just couldn’t get Dusty off the ground, despite huge efforts over a long period of time.’