BULLETT

A movie about the life of the iconic Nina Simone has been in the works pretty much forever, without a whole lot of chatter about any development towards actually making it to production (it’s funny that the phase of a movie’s inception where a lot of projects get stalled indefinitely is called “development”), but there’s news today as IOTG (via the Playlist) reports that Zoe Saldana has boarded the ship. Originally Mary J Blige was slated to play Simone, but the singer is apparently off the project which leaves some ambiguity as to Saldana’s role in the picture. Written by director Cynthia Mort, the script focuses on Simone’s later years, specifically on the pianist’s  relationship with her assistant Clifton Henderson, so other than Zoe Saldana possibly looking too much like a dream I had to play Nina Simone, she’s probably also too young for the script. Who knows, maybe she’s playing a different character; maybe the film’s producers will pull an Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and have the entire cast of The Help play Simone. They are, after all, the only black actresses in all of Hollywood.