It's true ... Milli Vanilli to receive Hollywood make-over
Staff and agencies
Thursday February 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Milli Vanilli
Mime artists ... Milli Vanilli
In recent years such music legends as Ray Charles and Johnny Cash have seen their turbulent lives and times adapted for the big screen. Now another illustrious name can be added to the list: that of the 1980s pop outfit Milli Vanilli.
Universal Pictures is currently developing a film based on the trials of the band's disgraced would-be singers, Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus. Variety magazine reports that Morvan has agreed to collaborate on the project. Pilatus died of a drugs overdose in 1998.
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The brainchild of German producer Frank Farian, Milli Vanilli went on to become one of the best-selling acts of the late 1980s. But disaster struck them down at the peak of their fame when it was revealed that preening front-men Morvan and Pilatus did not actually sing on their records. Suspicions were first raised in July 1989, when the recording of their song, Girl You Know it's True, stuck during a supposedly live performance at the Lake Compounce theme park in Connecticut. The following year they were stripped of their Grammy for best new artist and dropped by their record label.
The Milli Vanilli movie is to be written and directed by Jeff Nathanson. The film-maker is best known for penning the script for the fact-based crime caper Catch Me If You Can, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio as a charismatic scam artist who passes himself off as an airline pilot.
"I've always been fascinated by the notion of fakes and frauds," Nathanson told Variety. "And in this case you had guys who pulled off the ultimate con, selling 30m singles and 11m albums and then becoming the laughing stocks of pop entertainment."
