Brad Pitt Was Denied Playing The Greatest Rock Star Of All Time
Brad Pitt has been trying to make a Kurt Cobain biopic for decades, first as the star now as a producer, but Courtney Love keeps saying no to all offers.
Courtney Love denied the world a chance to see one of the greatest actors play the greatest rock star when she turned down Brad Pitt’s offer to make a Kurt Cobain biopic. Deadline reports that while being interviewed on WTF with Marc Maron, the lead singer of Hole, told a story of how turning down Brad Pitt cost her the female lead in Fight Club, even though she was dating Pitt’s co-star, Ed Norton, at the time. The music star, who had acted previously in The People vs. Larry Flynt, would have fit the aesthetic of Fight Club, but what hurts more is realizing how close the world got to seeing Brad Pitt play the legendary Kurt Cobain.
According to Courtney Love, Brad Pitt has been persistent, even asking in 2020 if he could produce a film about the Nirvana frontman. Letting the actor off gently, sort of, Love said “Listen, man. I don’t know that I trust you, and I don’t know that your movies are for profit, they’re really good social justice movies, but…if you don’t get me, you kind of don’t get Kurt, and I don’t feel like you do, Brad.” Making a biopic with different creatives, mentioned by Cobain’s widow were two producers from Warner Bros., as she says “Because they know how to make a f***ing movie.”
The Nirvana lead singer blew up the music industry in 1991 with Nevermind, an album so successful it killed the 80s “Glam Rock” style overnight. At one point, the album was selling 300,000 copies a week, and to this day, over 30 years later, it will still enter top 10’s, such as the 2021 Billboard US Top Rock Albums chart. Kurt Cobain changed the way music sounded, the way it was played, and elevated what fans should expect out of rock bands, so it is no surprise that Brad Pitt wanted to bring his amazing life to the big screen.
Brad Pitt has starred in biopics since Courtney Love denied him a role as Cobain, most notably Pitt brought Oakland A’s GM Billy Bean to life in Moneyball, and Austrian mountaineer Henrich Harrer in Seven Years in Tibet. At the time of the original offer to Love, Pitt would have played Cobain himself, with the actor even physically resembling the rock star back then. Since 2006, Pitt has been balancing his acting roles with producing film and television, backing up Love’s story that his last offer was just to produce the film through his company.
Regardless of how amazing Brad Pitt would have been as Kurt Cobain, without the blessing of Courtney Love, no project will ever happen as she controls her husband’s estate. To date, no biopic has been made about Cobain, though Gus van Sant’s 2005 film Last Days, was about a fictionalized version of the singer. Until Love finds the perfect producers, the ideal studio, and most importantly, a star that can properly embody the multifaceted genius of her late husband, a Cobain biopic will continue to be an elusive dream of so many Nirvana fans, and apparently, Brad Pitt.
