One of the three (three!) biopics about the life of maverick car designer John DeLorean is off and running, with Alex Holmes signed up to direct the Time Inc./XYZ Films version.
Holmes, who directed the BBC/HBO miniseries The House Of Saddam last year, has also adapted the screenplay with co-writer Rob Warr from a wealth of material about DeLorean's life, including the carmaker's unpublished memoirs, and articles from Fortune and Time.
DeLorean was, of course, the creator of the gull-winged car that (with one or two minor modifications) transported Marty McFly and Doc Brown so effortlessly through time. He had the kind of rich but chequered life that great biopics are made of, with a rise and crashing fall that saw him go from celebrated entrepreneur to convicted conman quicker than you can say 'Bernie Madoff'.
It's a heady tale packed full of hubris, drug deals, double-dealing and flash motors. Whether it's heady enough to sustain three competiting movies remains to be seen, with Brett Ratner directing another take on DeLorean's life and a third in the pipeline from producers David Permut and Steven Lee Jones.
The Time Inc./XYZ Films biopic is the officially-sanctioned version, though, with DeLorean's son Zachary saying: "this is the only one I'm standing behind, and the only one the DeLorean estate is allowing."