Make It Funky: James Brown Biopic Finds Its Leading Man

Hans Edinger/Associated Press The hardest-working man in show business: James Brown.

The producers of a planned biographical film on the Godfather of Soul,  James Brown,  are feeling good - good enough to move forward with the movie now that they have an actor to play Brown and a green light from Universal on the project. Variety reported that the as-yet untitled film will star Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed Jackie Robinson  this year in “42,” as Brown, the pioneering R&B singer who died in 2006.

Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press Chadwick Boseman

The biopic, which is being directed by Tate Taylor (“The Help”) and written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (“Fair Game”), will chronicle Brown's life from his impoverished upbringing in the South to his cape-wearing, can't-get-him-off-the-stage heyday. No release date was announced for the film, which is being produced by Imagine Entertainment and Jagged Films, the film company of Mick Jagger, a man who surely knows a thing or two about sweaty stage theatrics.