The death of Prince was an undeniable tragedy, but it sure was great for the people who now stand to make a ton of money from his work. His albums are getting reissued, they’re available for streaming, and now Variety is reporting that Universal is set to make a new movie “inspired by” Prince’s music. We’re not going to criticize anyone for getting paid, as we would happily sell out if anybody wanted to buy our albums, it’s just interesting that all of this is happening now that he can’t have a say in it.
Anyway, the movie is going to use Prince’s songs to “drive a fictional narrative,” as Variety puts it, meaning this won’t have anything to do with Prince’s actual life. It sounds like this will essentially be Across The Universe or Mamma Mia!, but with Prince instead of The Beatles or ABBA, and the Variety story notes that Universal “worked aggressively” to land this project after the Prince estate began shopping the idea around to movie studios in an apparent attempt to tap into the hot market for musicals. Meanwhile, the Michael Jackson estate is wondering how it possibly could’ve forgotten to do one of these.