Hugh Hefner biopic (Jared Leto, dir. Brett Ratner)
Jared Leto to Star as Hugh Hefner in Brett Ratner-directed Biopic (Exclusive)
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Leto will play the Playboy mogul in Brett Ratner's planned project.
Jared Leto, 45, will soon be donning the iconic silk pajamas and smoking jacket of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who died Sept. 27 at age 91, for an upcoming biopic from Brett Ratner.
"Jared is an old friend," says Ratner, 48, who will direct the film. "When he heard I got the rights to Hef's story, he told me, 'I want to play him. I want to understand him.' And I really believe Jared can do it. He's one of the great actors of today."
The project is in early development with Ratner's RatPac Entertainment. The director-producer has been set on helming the movie since 2007, when it was initially set up at Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. Robert Downey Jr. had once been attached to play Hef.
When the rights expired, they were purchased by producer Jerry Weintraub (Ocean's Eleven, HBO's Westworld) for Warner Bros. After Weintraub died in 2015, Ratner snapped up the rights for his own company. Says Ratner, "My goal is to do the motion picture as an event."
In April, Ratner invited Leto to the Playboy Mansion for the premiere of Amazon's docuseries American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story, which doubled as a celebration of Hefner turning 91.
Leto’s too pretty, but I’m sure his performance will be great. I’m excited about a Hefner biopic. They better not pull their punches. There’s a lot of amazing material to tell this story, and a lot of politics, social ideas, etc.
Brett Ratner on Hugh Hefner: He "Was Trying to Make This Country a Better Place"
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The producer of the upcoming Hefner biopic believes the Playboy founder and "consummate optimist" was one of a handful of leaders who made American culture less intolerant and repressive.
Hef was my friend. He was the coolest. And the hippest. And at the same time, the squarest. While he transformed from an Illinois prude to the ultimate urban sophisticate, he never lost the Midwest values on which he was raised. His word was bankable. His heart was a well of emotion, open for all to see. He was the least prejudiced man I ever knew. He had deep pockets and long arms.
I admired him differently at different times. When I was a kid, he was the embodiment of everything I wanted but seemed hopelessly out of reach: beautiful women, a kingly mansion, a bunny-emblazoned DC-9. He smoked a pipe and wore pajamas, both day and night. So did my uncle Mario, but he was a doctor and unfortunately wasn’t dating Barbie Benton.
In those days, Hef’s name was synonymous with sin. For me, like most young American boys, getting my hands on a Playboy was the ultimate forbidden fruit … the joys of living before the internet. But in those days, I thought the interviews with Norman Mailer, the short stories by John Cheever or the poems by Allen Ginsberg were mere fillers that kept The Girls of the Big Ten from slamming directly into Miss November.
In my 20s and 30s, when fortune smiled on me and I actually came to know Hef, spending time at the mansion, I admired his decency and his hospitality, how he made this Jewish kid from Miami Beach with a couple of movies under his belt feel as if he’d made it in a town that can be both magical and difficult. I also realized that by his fostering the literary and performing arts, by putting the wealth of his organization and the power of his convictions squarely on the side of civil liberties for all of our citizens, he was trying to make this country a better and fairer place.
[After RatPac secured the rights to develop a Hefner biopic, Hefner sent Ratner an inscribed copy of Playboy's first issue.]
Now that he’s gone, I realize more than ever that he didn’t have to do those things. Many titans of industry have no interest in contributing to the Greater Good. Certainly Hef enjoyed money and what it could buy. But his most treasured acquisitions were friends of whom there are too many to count and causes that were unabashedly progressive — of which he was justifiably proud.
My personal relationship with Hef actually started when I read that Brian Grazer was to produce a biopic about him. I sent Brian my classic 1970s playboy pinball machine with a note telling him that he’d found his director. After Brian capitulated, I had a series of meetings with Hef, desperately trying to crack how to tell the story, which is the odyssey of his life. The development process went through many incarnations — Imagine, Universal (with Robert Downey Jr. attached), Jerry Weintraub at Warners, and then, thankfully, it became available again. A dream came true: I bought it for RatPac. There will never be another Hugh Hefner, but getting to make a movie about his life is, I guess, the next best thing.
The America into which Hugh Hefner was born was in many ways intolerant and repressive. He, among only a handful of men in our history, made it less so. It saddened him to see the pendulum swinging the other way. But Hef was the consummate optimist. I’m sure he passed on believing that the pendulum will swing back, that the progress he was committed to and facilitated will ultimately become a permanent part of our national character.
Leto’s box office appeal has proven weaker than expected following the acclaim he received after Dallas Buyers Club and Mr Nobody, and recent underwhelming turns in Suicide Squad and Blade Runner (not counting that Ellen wtf) have likely complicated matters, making it doubtful that he can carry a film on reputation / name recognition. The publicized method madness isn’t doing him any favors considering the performances they led to.
So now that no one wants to touch anything with Ratner’s name on it, and Leto a gamble financially...as well timed as this film would be, I can’t see it going forward in its current form.
Playboy Pic Dead: Jared Leto Says He Never Intended To Play Hugh Hefner
by Anthony D'Alessandro - November 1, 2017 12:44pm
EXCLUSIVE: Not surprisingly, Playboy Enterprises has put the brakes on a planned biopic about Hugh Hefner with Brett Ratner directing as well as other projects with the filmmaker’s RatPac Entertainment. Earlier this month, trades ran with the news that Jared Leto was set to play Hefner. In fact calls to the Suicide Squad‘s rep reveal that the Oscar-winning actor never had any attention to play Hefner.
“Jared Leto is not and was not attached to a Brett Ratner directed Hugh Hefner film, nor will he be working with him in the future. Earlier reports were incorrect and not confirmed by his representatives,” said Leto’s rep this afternoon.
Earlier today Playboy Enterprises told Deadline: “We are deeply troubled to learn about the accusations against Brett Ratner. We find this kind of behavior completely unacceptable. We are putting all further development of our projects with RatPac Entertainment on hold until we are able to review the situation further.”
Given the accusations made against Ratner today by six women who went on the record with the Los Angeles Times, it would be impossible to imagine that the Rush Hour filmmaker would even make a feature about the sex empire media tycoon Hefner.
Reportedly, Ratner was set on directing a Hefner movie since 2007 with the project set up at Universal and Imagine Entertainment. Robert Downey Jr. once attached at one point to play Hefner.
The late Jerry Weintraub purchased the rights to make a Hefner movie at one point after they expired where he had a deal at Warner Bros. Following his death two years ago, Ratner acquired the rights.
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Hugh Hefner biopic (Jared Leto, dir. Brett Ratner)
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