Shailene Woodley is set to star as rocker Janis Joplin in a new biopic funded by the California Film Commission's Film and Television Tax Credit Program. The film is one of 15 independent projects to receive funding from the commission.
This isn't the first attempt at making a Janis Joplin biopic. In fact, back in May The Hollywood Reporter ran a piece about the many failed attempts at making one. Among those who were at one time attached to play Joplin on screen were Amy Adams, Melissa Etheridge, Brittany Murphy, Renée Zellweger, Zooey Deschanel and Pink.
Joplin gained fame as one of the most electrifying performers of her era, thanks to appearances at the Monterey Pop Festival as lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist at Woodstock. She died Oct. 4, 1970, at the age of 27. At the time she was recording her second solo album, Pearl, which was released after her death and spent nine weeks at #1.