More details are emerging surrounding the biopic
about legendary jazz singer Nina Simone. It now appears that the film's
executive producer Gene Kirkwood and its director Cynthia Mort are in
preliminary talks with Dr. Dre to score the film.
"If we can get Dr. Dre involved it could be very modern arrangements" that make up for the score in Nina, Kirkwood said in an interview with The Grio. "He's going to see a rough cut in about a week and a half. I would love for him to do what Quincy (Jones) did with In The Heat of The Night and (what) Quincy did with In Cold Blood. Quincy did a lot of scoring. I would love if Dre's next step would be to score it. That would be a great challenge."
Nina, currently in post-production will be director Cynthia
Mort's first feature length film and will star actress Zoe Saldana as
Nina. Saldana fell under much scrutiny after she was announced as the
star of the film. During an interview with The NY Times,
Simone's daughter, Simone Kelly said she disagreed with Saldana's
casting and she would've rather seen Viola Davis cast in the role of her
mother.
A Change.Org petition was placed online last fall asking for producers to replace Saldana, but they ignored it and chose to go with Saldana anyway.
Finally, singer India.Arie also criticized the
casting choice. The issue was that Zoe Saldana looks nothing like Nina
did, but producers and director Cynthia Mort stuck with their choice.
Nina will be released later this year and will focus on Nina
Simone as a singer, as a woman, and on a "complex being" discovering
inner truths about conflict and love," The Grio
reports. The film will also focus on Nina's mental and emotional
struggles. "Nina was bipolar," Kirkwood explained. "She was kind of out
there. The film will explore a very special, unique relationship she had
with this man she picked up at Cedars. He had no idea what he was
getting into."
Source - http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/351823