'Black Swan' director to helm Elon Musk's biopic

LOS ANGELES:

A biopic on Elon Musk is in the works at New York-based studio A24 with Black Swan filmmaker Darren Aronofsky as the director, according to a source familiar with the matter.

A24 secured the rights to Walter Isaacson's biography on the world's richest person, according to the source, who added the Musk biopic will be produced by Aronofsky's production company, Protozoa Pictures. "Glad Darren is doing it. He is one of the best," Musk said in an X post on Friday.

The studio has previously worked with the director to produce his film The Whale starring Brendan Fraser whicThe billionaire's life will now be told onscreen won Academy Awards for Best Actor, and Best Makeup and Hair Styling. A24 garnered 18 Academy Award nominations across six films this year, coming second only to entertainment giant Walt Disney.

Isaacson's book on Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was made into an eponymous movie by Universal in 2015 with Irish actor Michael Fassbender portraying the late tech tycoon. The book on Musk was released by private equity firm KKR-owned book publishing powerhouse Simon & Schuster in September.

The deal was highly competitive with top studios and filmmakers in contention too, the source told Reuters. Musk, who is the chief of rocket maker and satellite communications firm SpaceX, also heads the world's most valuable automaker Tesla and leads tunnel builder The Boring Company and brain-chip firm Neuralink. The billionaire bought social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, last year for $44 billion after a six-month saga.

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