Friday 18 November 2022 12:14 AM EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Cut! Mystery as major Dusty Springfield biopic starring ... trends now
Bond girl Gemma Arterton was 'excited' but also 'terrified' when she was cast as Sixties icon Dusty Springfield in a film about the legendary pop singer's colourful life.
Now, however, I can reveal that the film has been scrapped after the director, Phyllis Nagy, whose screenplay for Carol was nominated for an Oscar in 2016, pulled out of the project amid great mystery.
'Phyllis is no longer developing the project,' confirms a spokesman for Nagy, who was also due to write the screenplay.
It's highly unusual for films to be cancelled once the casting details have been announced.
The producers, Number 9 Films, which also made Carol, the 2015 film starring Cate Blanchett, confirmed the name, plot and cast of the Springfield film back in 2018.
They said So Much Love would be set in 1968 when, at the peak of her popularity, the singer travelled to Tennessee to record the album Dusty in Memphis.
'It will follow her as she navigates her way through the politics of the recording studio and the city, and will also explore her encounter with the music of Motown, her stand against apartheid policies during her aborted South African tour and her thorny brushes with men in the music industry,' an official synopsis said.
Filming was due to take place in Britain and the US in 2019.
Bond girl Gemma Arterton (pictured) said she was 'excited' but also 'terrified' when she was cast as late 1960s icon Dusty Springfield in a film about the legendary pop singer's colourful life
The producers, Number 9 Films, said in 2018 that So Much Love would be set in 1968 when, at the peak of her popularity, London-born Springfield travelled to Tennessee to record the album Dusty In Memphis. Pictured with Des O'Connor in 1970
Arterton, 36, who had worked with Number 9 on Byzantium and Their Finest, said: 'I have been an admirer of Dusty Springfield since I was a teenager: her effortless husky voice, the way she conveyed emotion through music, how she helped bring Motown to the UK.
'Dusty was ahead of her time in many ways and inspired so many future artists. She was generous, witty, mercurial, shy, extroverted and a true English eccentric. I simply cannot wait to play her.'
Nagy called the singer 'an innovative, brilliant artist and a complex, contradictory woman'.
Born in Enfield, North London, in 1939, Springfield's hits included I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself, The Look of Love and Son of a Preacher Man.
Her career was later blighted by alcoholism and self-harm but she made a comeback in collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys.
A Number 9 Films spokesman confirms: 'Sadly, we just couldn't get Dusty off the ground, despite huge efforts over a long period of time, which was very disappointing for us and Phyllis. We have no plans to continue with the film.'
Born in Enfield, North London, in 1939, Springfield's hits included I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself, The Look of Love and Son of a Preacher Man. Pictured in 1971
Is there no end to Ozzy Osbourne's talents? Don Was, producer to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, recalls being tasked with squeezing a rap from the Black Sabbath wailer.
'He didn't know what rapping was,' recalls Don. 'He said, "There's no melody? I don't even have to hit the note? I just talk? That's a piece of p***. I can do this". '
Revealing night
