TeleChimp | TV Journalism

Actor Al Pacino will depict record producer Phil Spector in a film presently being written by writer/director David Mamet for HBO Films.

Al Pacino won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in HBO’s You Don’t Know Jack, about the physician convicted for assisted suicide. Pacino’s agent said, “He just saw a very motivating character to play, and he likes the receptivity of Barry [Levinson] and David [Mamet],” reported by the New York Times.

Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Diner and Bugsy) will produce the film. He also produced and directed the film Jack.

It was also announced yesterday that HBO will adapt the bestselling Wall Street exposé book Too Big to Fail, about the 2008 financial crisis, with an all-star cast.

On this HBO Movies Paul Giamatti will play US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Billy Crudup will appear as Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury. The line-up also includes Tony Shalhoub, William Hurt, James Woods, Ed Asner, Cynthia Nixon and Curtis Hanson will direct.

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Al Pacino, it’s not relatively a monster movie, but it has some of the same elements of monster movies like: an outsize character, plenty of metaphor for mankind’s destruction, a mysterious death and lots of excessively teased hair.

HBO Films has decided to begin Phil Spector, the bewigged record producer who created the “wall of sound” in the 1960s but is now serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life for murder. Starring will be Al Pacino.

David Mamet will write and direct the film, which HBO cautioned is in the very early stages of development (it’s still untitled). Barry Levinson, who won an Oscar for directing “Rain Man,” will serve as executive producer.

Mr. Spector, 70, was convicted of second-degree murder last year; prosecutors successfully argued that the record producer shot Lana Clarkson, a struggling actress, in the foyer of his mansion in 2003. Mr. Spector’s lawyers as recently as March were still arguing in court for his release.

It was an ugly end to a celebrated career. Starting in the late 1950s, Mr. Spector produced a stream of pop megahits, including “Be My Baby,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” He completed and mixed the unfinished tapes for the final Beatles album, “Let It Be.”

Mr. Pacino, also 70, has an imposing stare that bears more than a passing similarity to Mr. Spector’s favorite facial expression. But what exactly interested the Oscar-winning actor in the role?

John L. Burnham, an agent at International Creative Management who represents Mr. Al Pacino, Mr. Mamet and Mr. Levinson, said that “He just saw a very interesting character to play, and he likes the sensibility of David and Barry,”

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