Justin Timberlake has lately made something of a game out of doing music-related projects that don’t involve actually making music, and here’s another: Timberlake has signed on to star in Spinning Gold, a biopic of Neil Bogart, the 1970s producer of many of the decade’s biggest hit records, which are those things Justin Timberlake used to make before The Social Network. Bogart’s son Tim wrote the screenplay, which details his father’s rise from being a “dirt-poor Jewish kid from Brooklyn” to the top of the industry, managing the careers of artists like KISS, Donna Summer, and The Village People before dying of cancer at the age of 39. And naturally, when you think “dirt-poor Jewish kid from Brooklyn,” you think “Justin Timberlake,” who probably has to turn down a remake of The Jazz Singer like every three days.
Anyway, the younger Bogart says he actually sees his father in Timberlake, which must be sort of weird, and he’s now ready to move forward with production on a film he says he’s wanted to make for nearly three decades now. Though really, the timing seems more apt than ever given the apparent surge of interest in telling the stories behind the super sounds of the ’70s, the now-romanticized era when the music business was still all about money and drugs, instead of less money and worse drugs. And to further capitalize on that nostalgia, the producers say they plan to release an accompanying soundtrack album. Guess who probably won’t be on it?