Turner to script singer James' biopic

Texas-based entrepreneur to fund 'Super Freak'

By MICHAEL FLEMING

James

"The Longest Yard" scribe Sheldon Turner is set to write "Super Freak," a film about the life of colorful and controversial punk-funk singer Rick James.

Jennifer Klein will produce through her Apartment 3B Prods. banner.

Project isn't set at a studio; development is being funded by John Farbes, a Texas-based entrepreneur who owns the Athens Development Corp. Farbes will be an exec producer along with Mark Gill and Turner. Patrick Aluise of Aluise Entertainment will produce with Klein.

Turner and Klein have been interested in James since a Warner Independent Pictures exec gave them 400 pages of a memoir written by the singer, who died in 2004.

WIP backed away from a deal when Gill left the company, but Klein and Turner persisted. They worked with the singer's estate to tie down a rights package that includes that unpublished manuscript and a catalog of James' hit songs, including "Super Freak" and "Give It to Me Baby."

James was a stylish performer also known for his long battles with cocaine and legal trouble.

Turner said he's not interested in writing the typical rags-to-riches-to-drugs music biopic. Nor was the James estate, which put the brakes on a proposed Paramount project several years ago that had Dave Chappelle interested.

Turner said James' memoir (the estate would like to get the book published when the movie's made) was rich with the story of a gifted musician who married funk, rock and sex and partied with just about everyone, "from Jim Morrison to princes to Prince, another singer he feuded with because Rick felt he'd ripped off his act," Turner said.

Klein, who's developing "A Family Affair" at New Line and the Stuart Beattie-scripted "Man Without a Gun" at Warner Independent, is teamed with Turner on the Fox dramas "Two Minutes to Midnight" and "Orbit." Turner is also writing "Magneto," an X-Men spinoff film at Fox.