Universal Pictures has set David Benioff to write an untitled drama about the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
Studio has acquired rights to “Heavier Than Heaven,” a Cobain biography written by Charles Cross.
Feature adaptation will be a co-production of Working Title and Reveille Motion Pictures. Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan, Ben Silverman and Graham Larson will produce. Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, exec produces with Howard Weitzman.
Silverman developed the film at his Reveille banner before departing the company earlier this year to become co-chairman of NBC Entertainment. Weitzman is Love’s lawyer.
For “Heavier Than Heaven,” Cross had access to Cobain’s unpublished diaries as well as his friends and family members.
Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, who now fronts Foo Fighters. Led by Cobain’s growling delivery, inventive guitar work and lyrics, the band initially connected with disaffected youth and then became international superstars. Nirvana ushered in the Seattle grunge music movement in the early ’90s with hits led by “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Cobain’s life was marked by depression and drug use, and he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1994, leaving behind his wife and a daughter.
Benioff most recently scripted “The Kite Runner” as well as the Gavin Hood-directed “X-Men” spinoff film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” He also penned the remake drama “Brothers,” to be directed by Jim Sheridan.
