Hollywood loves to delve back into its past for a bit of a biopic, but it doesn’t often go back as far as the silent era. However Mary Pickford is definitely worth making a movie about, as she’s often regarded as the first true movie superstar.
Ryan Simpkins has already been cast to play a young Pickford, with American Horror Story’s Lily Rabe playing the more grown up version. Michael Pitt meanwhile is Owen Moore, Pickford’s first husband, before they divorced and she married the much more famous Douglas Fairbanks.
Now Variety reports that Julia Stiles has joined the cast, playing Frances Marion who was one of the top screenwriters of the early 20th Century. She won Oscars for The Big House and The Champ, and collaborated with Pickford on numerous projects.
Jennifer DeLia is set to direct. The movie is currently looking for distributors at the Berlin Film Festival. The hope is to shoot later this year, by which time the roles of Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith, Jack Pickford (Mary’s brother), Charlotte Hennessy (Mary’s mother) and Lillian Gish will also have been cast.
Michael Pitt has left Boardwalk Empire behind and it seems he’s going back to the mix of indie, arthouse and edge of the mainstream movies he used to make before his sejourn to HBO. Now