Dev Patel is reportedly in talks to play Mumbai-born millionaire and striptease act co-founder Somen Banerjee in a true crime film, according to Deadline.
Somen “Steve” Banerjee was one of the founders of the multi-million dollar Chippendales burlesque show in 1979. He was later arrested for racketeering and murder, and hung himself in prison in 1994. The Chippendales company is now being run by a different set of owners.
Ben Stiller has been cast as Nick DeNoia, an Emmy-winning producer of children’s show who recruited the dancers for the shows and choreographed their routines, according to Deadline.
The Bold Films production has a script by writer Isaac Adamson, whose previous screenplay Bubbles, a stop-motion animated feature about Michael Jackson and his chimp, was on Hollywood’s prestigious Black List, a list of best unproduced screenplays. The Banerjee biopic has spent close to 20 years in development and passed through many directors such as Oliver Stone, Tony Scott, Barry Sonnenfeld and David Michod. A website had announced last year that Salman Khan planned on producing a film based on Banerjee’s rag-to-riches story.
“I see this project as bringing back the dark side of the excesses of the 1980s with elements of Boogie Nights, American Hustle and Scarface,” one of the film’s producers told Variety.
The Slumdog Millionaire actor, who received a Best Actor nomination for 2017’s Lion, will next be seen in Hotel Mumbai, about the events at the Taj Mahal Hotel during the 26/11 terrorist attacks.