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Nina Arianda

THEATRE ACTRESS NINA ARIANDA TAPPED TO PORTRAY JANIS JOPLIN

New biopic about Pearl years in the making

If the only artistic medium to truly immortalize people is cinema then Janis Joplin will finally get her day in the sun: the cosmic mama is the subject of an upcoming biopic slated for production.

This new film, titled “Joplin,” will be produced by Peter Newman. Principal photography is set to begin in September 2013. Sean Durkin (“Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene”) has been attached to direct it. The budget for “Joplin” is estimated to be around $ 20M.

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Peter Newman told industry trade Deadline that it took him more than twelve years to obtain licensing rights to Joplin’s twenty-one best-known titles, as well as those for the “Love: Janis” book, an anthology of letters Joplin had sent to her sister Laura.

Joplin-Arianda

Janis Joplin, Nina Arianda

He’ll also likely draw from the hundreds of hours of interview time Rolling Stone journalist David Dalton had logged with Joplin as he followed her during the last six months of her life, before she died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970 in Los Angeles at age 27.

Nina Arianda (pictured) has been attached to portray the gravelly-voiced chanteuse–Pink and Zooey Deschanel had been rumored for the role before this. Arianda is especially known here for playing Vanda in the play “Venus in Fur,” for which she received a Best Actress Tony. She also appeared in “Midnight in Paris.”

In 1979 Bette Middler had portrayed a singer modeled on Joplin in Mark Rydell’s “The Rose.” Middler’s turn earned her and the film an Oscar nomination; Golden Globes, César and BAFTA accolades followed.