emily   –   October 21, 2015

DEADLINE.COM – EXCLUSIVE: Nicholas Hoult and Jack O’Connell are circling A Life In The Day, the Tony Gittelson script about the life of Brian Epstein, who discovered and managed the Beatles from 1961-1967, before he died of a drug overdose at 32. Justin Chadwick (Tulip Fever) is in talks to direct the project, which David Permut will produce through his Permut Presentations banner along with Dylan Sellers’ Rivers Edge Films.

Rivers Edge has a strategic partnership with Kevin Frakes’ Palmstar Media that has Palmstar funding Sellers’ overhead, production and development costs. The two companies are committed to jointly produce four to five films with budgets between $20 million-$40 million.

This is still a fluid situation with no deals set, but if it all comes together, Hoult would play the flamboyant and gay Epstein, with O’Connell the brilliant but troubled John Lennon. The intense relationship between the two men has been the subject of much debate and analysis over the years. As recently as this week, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono mused about the possibility that Epstein and Lennon had sex with each other. She was quoted in the Daily Beast as saying, “It was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.”

Chadwick, coming off the Weinstein Company period drama Tulip Fever — which also stars O’Connell — has a number of projects he’s choosing from with A Life In The Day believed to be near the top of the list for what would be his next project. Hoult is currently in pre-production on Sand Castle opposite Henry Cavill and Luke Evans. O’Connell has George Clooney-starrer Money Monster in post.

Chadwick is repped by Independent Talent Group in the UK and UTA in the U.S. Hoult is repped by 42 in the UK and UTA in the U.S. O’Connell is repped by Conway Van Gelder Grant in the UK and CAA in the U.S. Tony Gittelson is repped by ICM Partners and Donaldson & Callif.

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