Robert Mapplethorpe, legendary music and art photographer, gets the biopic treatment

Robert Mapplethorpe went out with Patti Smith in the 70s and was one of the most gifted photographers of his generation. He led a fascinating life, leaving his fire-and-brimstone Catholic upbringing to live as a starving artist in New York, to shooting the art stars of the day (including many musicians – it’s his picture on the cover of ‘Horses’) alongside the rent-boys and exquisite still lifes, until his death from an AIDs-related illness in 1989.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Franco will star as the photographer in a movie called Mapplethorpe. Ondi Timoner (she did that great documentary We Live in Public ) will direct the Tribeca-backed project, which is expected to finish by the end of the year.