A fictionalized version of the historic Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage will soon be coming to a theater near you.
According to The New York Times, 20th Century Fox has bought the rights to Jim Obergefell’s story. Obergefell, a real estate agent, was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case which made marriage equality the law of the land on June 26. He initially filed a lawsuit in 2013 when his legal Maryland marriage to his late husband wasn’t recognized by the state of Ohio.
The film, which is set to be completed in two years, will be based on a yet-to-be written book, entitled “21 Years to Midnight,” by Obergefell and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Debbie Cenziper. It will reportedly be produced by Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen through the studio’s Fox 2000 division, which turned literary adaptations “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Life of Pi” into box office hits.
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“It’s a transcendent love story about someone who goes to such a length for love that he ends up changing the world,” Godfrey told The Times in a phone interview. Ironically, the satirical publication The Onion was ahead of the curve in predicting a feature film based on the same-sex marriage ruling. In a piece published the same day as the 5-4 decision, they joked that the dissenting Supreme Court justices (Scalia, Roberts, Thomas and Alito) quickly realized they would be portrayed as the villains of an Oscar-worthy prestige picture to be penned by award-winning writer Tony Kushner. The Onion mused that the title would be “Defense of Marriage,” and to the conservative justices’ disdain would probably star “George f–king Clooney” as a hero attorney and would earn character actor Paul Dano his first Academy Award nomination as a “gay rights crusader.”
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