Although he only had one album under his belt before an untimely death in 1997, Jeff Buckley captured the ears, and hearts, of many who continue to wonder what might have been. Hollywood has been obsessed with telling his story, as well, perhaps because of the lost potential in Buckley’s talent, or echoes of the early death of Buckley’s musician father, Tim. About a decade ago multiple films on Buckley developed all at the same time, and one of those, titled Mystery White Boy, was to star Reeve Carney. It never came to be, but now years later Carney is back in the Buckley role for an entirely new film.
Culmination Productions says it has signed Reeve Carney to play Jeff Buckley in Everybody Here Wants You. Directed by Orion Williams and penned by Dionne Jones, the film will center on Buckley’s life and career leading up to the swimming accident that took his life in 1997.
Fans of Buckley will be interested in this as it has the expressed approval of the Buckley estate and his mother, Mary Guibert, who says “This will be the only official dramatization of Jeff’s story which I can promise his fans will be true to him and to his legacy. Thankfully, my determination to assemble all the right participants, no matter how long it took, is about to culminate in the best way possible.”
I’m curious whether this is essentially a retooled version of Mystery White Boy. Not only does it have the same star in Carney, but the Buckley estate backed that film as well.
The most famous biopic on Buckley remains 2012’s Greetings from Tim Buckley, which featured an acclaimed performance from Penn Badgley.
Carney is a musician and actor probably best known for his role as Dorian Gray in Penny Dreadful. He’ll be seen next in Ridley Scott’s Gucci film.
Assuming all goes well in finding a distributor, we could see Everybody Here Wants You sometime in 2022.
