Don Cheadle to Star and Direct In Upcoming Miles Davis Flick

There’s a new trend in movies this year. 2012 just might be the year of the biopic. (Good news for lovers of history and timeless personalties… bad news for lovers of vampires and zombies…) By now we’ve all heard about Andre 3000′s on-set forray into the life of Jimi Hendrix (which is currently filming). Aaron Sorkin is writing a script about Apple Founder, Steve Jobs, and Steven Speilberg has signed up to do a film about Abraham Lincoln… More for us music heads though: the next one to get green lit is Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis flick! As if the news alone weren’t dope enough, the House of Lies actor/producer says:

“It’s a gangster pic. It’s a movie that Miles Davis would have wanted to star in. Without throwing history away, we’re trying to shuffle it… The bulk of it takes place in ’79, in a period where he actually wasn’t playing….we traverse a lot of it his life, but it’s not a cradle to grave story.”

The super-talented Cheadle (or “Chee-tos” as I lovingly call him), will be directing and starring in the movie, which has already gone through the Hollywood rumor mill a few times. Aside from the usual false rumors of indefinite production road-blocks, unnamed sources, (who are apparently also uninformed sources) spread word that Cheadle would be taking the flick to Broadway before filming, a rumor Cheadle dismissed last week, saying:

“Dear Everybody, contrary to several internet sites, I am NOT doing in any way shape or form a Broadway play about Miles Davis. Word is bond.”

Ummm…. that’s a relief. Either way, the bigger picture here is that black musicians so rarely get their moment in history that I’m stoked this is happening. Let’s hope both the Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix reboots are as amazing as Jamie Foxx’s ode to Ray Charles.

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- @tashatheamazon