A series on BUSTER KEATON is in the works with Rami Malek in the role of the iconic actor and directed by Matt Reeves

He was damn now the iconic silent film actor Buster Keaton I have a bio project! The boy led such a glamorous and crazy life in the early days of Hollywood, and his story will finally be told as a limited series! The project is staged at Warner Bros. e Rami Malek is set to play the vaudeville silent film star.

The project still gets better, though, as The Batman director Matt Reeves will produce and direct the series! Three time Emmy winner Ted Cohen (Friends, Succession, Look) is in talks to write and serve as executive producer alongside Reeves and Malek.

The book Buster Keaton: The Life of a DirectorOf James Curtisit will be used as source material for the series, and the studio is currently securing the rights to the book.

Keaton has acted in silent films such as Playhouse, cops, The electric house, Sherlock Jr,, The general, and many others. He even did all of his own death-defying stunts in the movies that he made! To this day he is regarded as one of the great physical comedians in the history of cinema. His stunt work is still considered one of the most impressive pieces ever made.

His most famous film was the 1929 film The general, “One of the most revered comedies of the silent era, this film finds hapless Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray (Keaton) taking on Union soldiers during the American Civil War. When Johnny’s girlfriend Annabelle Lee is accidentally kidnapped while on a stolen train by Northern forces, Gray pursues the soldiers, using various means of transportation in comedic action scenes that highlight wit and Keaton’s boundless dexterity.

Keaton was born into a vaudeville family and while he was moderately successful, his career took a nosedive after signing a deal with MGM and losing his artistic independence. Subsequently, his wife divorced him and he became an alcoholic. However, after putting together his show in the 1940s, his career rebounded. Eventually he remarried and won an Academy Honorary Award in 1959.

Last year it was announced that 20th Century Studios was developing a Buster Keaton biopic James Mangold direction.

There is a great deal of talent on board developing this project and I can’t wait to see how it pans out! Fun fact: Buster Keaton is my eighth cousin four times removed.

Here is the description of the book on which the series will be based:

It was James Agee who dubbed Buster Keaton “The Great Stone Face”. Keaton’s face, Agee wrote, “ranked nearly together with Lincoln’s as one of the earliest American archetypes; he was creepy, handsome, almost handsome, yet he was also irreducibly funny. Keaton was the only great comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his and his work. . . took pure physical comedy to its highest level.

Mel Brooks: “A lot of my audacity came from Keaton.”

Martin Scorsese, influenced by Keaton’s images during the making of Raging Bull: “The only person who had the right attitude about boxing for me in the movies,” Scorsese said, “was Buster Keaton.”

Keaton’s deadpan gaze in a pork pie hat was as recognizable as Charlie Chaplin’s tramp and Harold Lloyd’s clown and glasses, and, with WC Fields, the foursome were both considered comedy kings, but Keaton was, and still is, considered the greatest of them all.

His iconic looks and acrobatic brilliance overshadowed the fact that behind the camera Keaton was one of our most gifted directors. Through nineteen short comedies and twelve magnificent features, he has distinguished himself with such seminal works as Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr., The Cameraman and his masterpiece, The General.

Source: Deadline