Martin Scorsese could tell the story of how Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made each other miserable

By Sean O'Neal | June 2, 2011 | 3:13pm

Aux Features Film

Now that Elizabeth Taylor is gone, it’s safe to begin digging through her past to make the entertainment of our future—fitting, since Taylor’s tempestuous off-screen life was often more interesting than what she did on screen, particularly if that screen is showing Cleopatra. Paramount Pictures has made the first move toward turning that film’s most famous behind the scenes story by optioning Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, And The Marriage Of The Century, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s 2010 account of how the two stars met during the making of the 1963 epic and spent the next decade-plus falling madly in and out of love, much to the chagrin of the spouses they left behind.

It’s one of Hollywood’s most romantic stories of rich-people adultery, and both the backdrop of classic cinema and the volatility of Liz-n-Dick’s relationship make seemingly perfect fodder for Martin Scorsese, who’s loosely attached to direct. Of course, we’ve learned not to get too excited when it comes to Scorsese and Old Hollywood figures: He spent years working up Nick Tosches’ awesome Dean Martin biography Dino: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams to no avail and more recently began developing his “unconventional” Frank Sinatra film that we haven’t heard anything about in a while. Basically Scorsese is just spreading his alpha-male scent around a wide berth of possible biopics to ensure lesser filmmakers don’t come sniffing around, which is fine.