Emile Hirsch To Play John Belushi

Things have been rather quiet on the Emile Hirsch front for a few years.

After being hyped as a future star on the strength of his work in Into The Wild and Milk, and box office success in The Girl Next Door, he drifted off into making nonsense like Savages and The Darkest Hour (which you really must see because it’s hilariously terrible).

He’s now getting a second shot with a juicy role playing John Belushi in a new biopic. Hailed as comedy genius, Belushi was one of the original members of the Saturday Night Live cast, star of Blues Brothers and Animal House and a tragic drug addict. He died of an overdose at the age of 33 at the Chateau Marmont hotel.

The film, which shoots in New York next spring, is being written and directed by Steve Conrad, writer of Pursuit of Happyness and Ben Stiller’s forthcoming Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Dan Aykroyd, the other Blues Brother, is producing the project and it’s based on a biography by Belushi’s widow, which suggests the film should be much more than just a quick skim of a lurid life.