Many filmmakers wanted to acquire the rights to Walter Isaacson’s bestselling book about Elon Musk.
The director of Black Swan And Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky, will be at the helm of a biopic on Elon Musk, the A24 studio confirmed to AFP on Friday, which won a fierce competition to obtain the rights to a biography of the whimsical billionaire. The film will be based on the work by Walter Isaacson, published in September in the United States, which depicts a complex individual, obsessed with the conquest of space, and with brutal management methods.
“The deal was hotly contested, with major studios and directors in the running.”, a spokesperson for A24 told AFP, without giving further details on a possible filming or release date. The American Darren Aronofsky, who also recently directed the feature film “The Whale in collaboration with A24, “must direct and produce the film with their production company”, said the spokesperson. A24 is also behind the hit film, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
Portrait of a “big child”
Walter Isaacson, whose book Elon Musk quickly placed itself at the top of sales, had also written a biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (2011), which was then adapted into a film with Michael Fassbender in the lead role. For his biography of Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson enjoyed unprecedented access to the entrepreneur, whom he interviewed on numerous occasions. According to the author, the boss of SpaceX, Tesla, and owner ofbig child”who remains marked by a youth during which he was regularly the victim of harassment at school.
The native South African is described as attracted by the storm and the dramasubject to “unpredictable emotional oscillations”, which are manifested in the way he runs his businesses. The book notably mentions several examples of Elon Musk’s anger, furious when his employees do not meet his expectations or ready to humiliate them if they resist him.