A bit of hype was ignited a few years back when it was announced that She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel had beaten out Scarlett Johansson, Britney Spears (?), and Lindsay Lohan for the lead role in Penelope Spheeris’ planned Janis Joplin biopic, The Gospel According to Janis.
Time passed, however, and the film’s production hit some bumps in the road. “[The Film’s] on hold right now, so I don’t know when we’re going to start shooting,” Deschanel told VH1 in 2007. “We were supposed to shoot in November, but it’s one of these things [that] seems like it’s been hard to get all the money and the rights in place. There are all kinds of different rights. You need the rights to the song, and life rights. There’s a lot of legal stuff that goes into playing a real person.” Deschanel had even helped out with the fine-tuning of the script, but legal issues aren’t usually the kind of thing resolved by creative means.
Well, I’m sad to report that despite an alleged competition between Deschanel and Vanessa Hudgens for the lead, the Joplin biopic is barely alive. In fact, “it seems kind of dead now,” the future Mrs. Ben Gibbard told WENN (via IMDB). “It’s such a fantastic story and a dream role, but it doesn’t seem to be want to made, and you can’t force these things. I don’t think any of the work I did was lost. I enjoyed doffing the research, so I don’t regret any of it.”