by Oscar-winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett will portray the lovable Lucille Ball in a new big-screen biopic authorized by Ball’s children, Lucie Arnez and Desi Arnez Jr.
The Arnez children will produce with Escape Artists, a studio based on the Sony lot. Aaron Sorkin appears to be writing the screenplay, as first reported Wednesday night by The Wrap.
Blanchett won an Academy Award for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, and followed that up with an Oscar for best actress in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. She also somehow was the best of many actors portraying Bob Dylan in 2007’s I’m Not There.
The feature film would focus on Ball’s 20-year marriage to Desi Arnez, from 1940 to 1960, which included their famous years on TV starring in I Love Lucy.
It’s shaping up to be a big 2016 for the legacy of Lucille Ball. Groundbreaking happened earlier this summer on the National Comedy Center, an expansion of the Lucille Ball Desi Arnez Museum in Jamestown, N.Y.
If you’d rather see the role go to a comedian, though, I’ve got two names for you:
KATE McKINNON
MAMRIE HART
OK, your turn!