An exclusive report from The Wrap announced that the Sony-owned Escape Artists studio has launched a fully-authorized biopic about beloved TV icon and comedienne Lucille Ball—with high-profile talent to match. Cate Blanchett, currently generating breathless early raves for her Todd Haynes-directed lesbian romance Carol, will redden her hair and make zany her demeanor to play the actress of repute.

The biopic genre isn’t exactly new territory for Blanchett, as she’s previously breathed life into famed performers Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator and Bob Dylan in I’m Not There (her first collaboration with Haynes). It’s even more familiar to attached screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who’ll pen the script as a follow-up to his Steve Jobs biopic Steve Jobs, which followed his Billy Beane biopic Moneyball, which followed his Mark Zuckerberg biopic The Social Network, which followed his Charlie Wilson biopic Charlie Wilson’s War. The man sticks to his strengths.

Though the as-of-now untitled project has yet to attract a director or any other actorly personnel, Sorkin has indicated that he’s got a general idea of where the story will go. He’ll adhere to his strategy of focusing his attentions on a specific span of his subject’s life, constraining the action to the twenty-year marriage between Ball and her costar Desi Arnaz. The pair wed in 1940 and sired two children before filing for divorce in 1960, after which Ball promptly remarried to Gary Morton. Somewhat perversely, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucille Ball Jr. will produce this reenactment of their parents’ courtship and consequent dissolution. This project is very much still in the gestative stages, so the presiding studios will have some ‘splainin’ to do before audiences can truly get excited about this one.

Think Blanchett will make for a good Lucy? Got any alternate-universe casting suggestions? Chime in below!

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HT: The Wrap
Image Credit: Sony Pictures Classic