Oprah’s life to become a movie?
OPRAH WINFREY’S LIFE IS ABOUT TO BE ADAPTED INTO A MOVIE, by The Post Chronicle
CHICAGO – A tell-all book about TV queen Oprah Winfrey’s life is to be adapted into a movie. Filmmaker Larry A. Thompson has acquired the rights to Kitty Kelley’s controversial book Oprah: A Biography and is turning it into a film – and the director admits he faces a challenge in finding the right actress to play Winfrey. Thompson said in a statement: “Oprah Winfrey’s fascinating journey from rural Mississippi to the world stage is packed with simple truths and complicated personalities. Kitty Kelley’s extensively-researched book offers us the factual foundation to frame our cinematic portrait of this powerful and beloved icon.
“Casting someone to play Oprah will be the real challenge. We are planning to audition both known and unknown actresses.” News of the project, to be released next year (11), won’t be welcomed by the talk show titan – she slammed the unauthorised tome earlier this year (09), branding it a “so-called biography”. The book alleges Winfrey used drugs and embellished stories about her poverty-stricken background. In the meantime, Winfrey is searching for her OWN replacement! The media mogul will step down from her hugely popular self-titled talk show next year, when The Oprah Winfrey Show comes to an end after 25 seasons.
Now the TV titan has announced plans to launch an American Idol-style competition to find a new name to host a show on her cable network. She is launching the talent contest for wannabe TV hosts in a bid to find America’s next small screen star. She has teamed up with reality TV mogul Mark Burnett to launch Your Own Show: Oprah’s Search For The Next TV Star. Burnett tells the Press Association, “The landscape and acceptance of ordinary people on television is widely accepted… Much in the way American Idol finds unknown people (to be music stars) there’s no reason we can’t find someone who deserves their own show.”
The program will air in America in January when OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) launches.