Bestseller Elon Musk biography to be adapted into film
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The book, published in September, describes the turbulent tycoon as a man driven by childhood demons.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – A top-selling biography of American billionaire Elon Musk is being adapted into a film with prolific American director Darren Aronofsky already attached, production company A24 said on Friday.
The author of Elon Musk, star biographer Walter Isaacson, had a previous book on Apple founder Steve Jobs made into a 2015 film starring Michael Fassbender.
A representative for A24 confirmed to AFP that it had won a “highly competitive” deal for the rights to Isaacson’s book, with “top studios and film-makers in contention too”.
The production company was behind 2022’s multi-Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once, as well as The Whale, whose leading man Brendan Fraser took home Best Actor.
Aronofsky, director of The Whale and other hit dramas such as Black Swan (2010) and Requiem For A Dream (2000), is set to direct and produce the Musk biopic, the A24 representative said.
The book was published in September and – like Isaacson’s previous works on Jobs and Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci, among other notables – quickly shot to the top of bestseller lists.
It describes the turbulent tycoon
Musk’s early life was already well known, but Isaacson focuses attention on his abusive and manipulative father Errol, whom Musk despises.
The book proposes that Musk, 52, is driven by what his former partner, singer-songwriter Grimes, calls the “demon mode”. It is, according to Isaacson, what makes him highly productive and is common among overachievers.
Musk’s chaotic and impulse-driven takeover of social media platform Twitter – now renamed X – also gets a lot of attention, with the billionaire seen as struggling to recognise that technology and sheer willpower will not create miracles.
Another recurring theme in the book is Musk’s vindictive tendencies towards doubters and critics.
A24 did not mention any timeframe for the film’s development or release. AFP
