A little less than two years ago it was announced that Warrior Poets, the production company steered by documentarian Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me, Where In The World Is Osama bin Laden?), had acquired rights to “Can I Go Now?“, Brian Kellow’s biography of legendary super-agent Sue Mengers (1932-2011). It was reported that Spurlock was working on a feature script adaptation, and that he might direct it.
Read Peter Biskind‘s Vanity Fair profile of Mengers (“When Sue Was Queen”, published in April 2000), and tell me her rise-and-fall story isn’t a good one, and that if the script is right and the director knows what he/she is doing that whoever plays Mengers wouldn’t be in line for a Best Actress Oscar. Go ahead — read it and tell me that.
But of course, Spurlock committed #MeToo hari-kiri last December. He announced his withdrawal from several projects with an admission that he’s part of the sexual harassment problem in the entertainment industry, etc. Which means that he’s now a dead man who has no shot at adapting or directing anything…right?
Maybe not. Maybe Spurlock will be allowed to come out of self-imposed hibernation…what, a year from now? Two?
I only know that the Mengers biopic has a lot of great material. Bette Midler did a one-woman show about Mengers in 2013, called “I’ll Eat You Last“, written by John Logan. It really could be an above-average feature. Really. I think.
During her peak years (late ’60s to early ’80s), Mengers represented Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon, Joan Collins, Brian De Palma, Faye Dunaway, Bob Fosse, Gene Hackman, Sidney Lumet, Ali MacGraw, Steve McQueen, Nick Nolte, Tatum O’Neal, Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Gore Vidal and Tuesday Weld.
From Mengers obit: When the Manson family murders took place, Mengers reportedly reassured Streisand with “Don’t worry, honey, stars aren’t being murdered…only featured players.”