Cheadle’s Miles Davis Film Getting There

An intriguing-sounding biopic of Miles Davis has moved a step closer, with actor and director Don Cheadle stating in an interview that he is still grinding away with his passion project.

Spinner reports that the film will look at the jazz great over the course of a day-and-a-half of his life rather than the conventional bildungsroman style that many biographical movies seem to insist on. The credibility factor for the film is upped further with the news that Herbie Hancock will be composing the score.

Cheadle, star of Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven and Hotel Rwanda, told the New York Times that securing funding for the project has been a tricky business. He said, “It’s day by day. I actually just got off the phone with the studio executives about putting it together. It’s a difficult time to make films, especially ones that don’t have people flying or sequels or cars. So we’re grinding, you know. We’re struggling through, but it’s going to happen.”

He also stated, at Collider, that “The movie takes place over a day and a half of his life – a very intense day and a half of his life but a lot of people haven’t even engaged because of what they perceive it’s going to be.

“Once they read it, they’re like ‘Oh, this is great.’ So everyone’s really dying to be the second person to say yes and to invest in this film.”

Cheadle had previously blamed George Bush for the film’s slow progress, with the former president according to Cheadle causing the global economic crisis and therefore limiting the money available to movie studios.

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