By Ryan Parsons | Image property of respective holders, Variety.
Bryan Singer
It is surprising how often this happens. One studio announces a meteor story titled Deep Impact while another goes with Armageddon. Out comes Tombstone and soon after Wyatt Earp. When a good idea begins to circulate the parties and bars of Hollywood, it isn't long before a couple people hold on.
The latest battle will take place between directors Bryan Singer and Gus Van Sant, who are both hoping to helm a biopic on Harvey Milk, the San Francisco supervisor and first openly gay elected official in the U.S., who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Daniel White.
Singer vs. Sant for Milk Biopic
Bryan Singer has known about Milk for some time, having been brought on by Warner Independent a couple years back. Titled The Mayor of Castro Street, the film will be based on the book by Randy Shilts. Warner is finishing up some final number-crunching before Castro can enter production.
It looks like they may want to hurry, as director Gus Van Sant recently landed himself an untitled script on Harvey Milk by Lance Black, who has scribed for multiple episodes of HBO's Big Love.
As demonstrated by the recent battle between Capote and Infamous, when two related films are to be released in a small time frame, it is best to be the first one out in the market.
To add a little more spice to this battle, Van Sant was once set to direct Castro Street and even wrote his own draft of the script years ago for Warner Bros.
Though one would assume Singer to busy thanks to the Superman Returns sequel and Valkyrie, a project he is doing with Tom Cruise, Warner Independent is still confident that they can get the director behind the camera in two snaps and a sugar twist.
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