Richard Branson Buys Rolling Stones Book For Film Drama
By DOMINIC PATTEN Saturday April 21, 2012 @ 2:22pm PDT

EXCLUSIVE: The Rolling Stones and Richard Branson are teaming up again. Having released three Stones albums back in the 1990s on Virgin Records, Branson’s Virgin Produced has now acquired the rights to Robert Greenfield’s 2008 book Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones. Unlike past looks at this time in the Stones career, this film is a drama not a documentary. Like the book, the film will focus on the professional and personal relationship between head Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the band record their classic Exile on Main Street album in the south of France in the summer of 1971. Virgin Produced, partnering with City Entertainment and KippSter Entertainment, is developing the project internally. Brandon and Phil Murphy have been brought on board to write the screenplay. The Murphys, represented by Rich Cook at WME and manager Langley Perer at Mosaic, are no strangers to biopics. Among the projects on their plate currently is a Steve McQueen project for Sony and producer Jerry Weintaub. Jason Felts will serve as producer for the Stones film. Rene Rigal will oversee the project for Virgin Produced, with Joshua Maurer producing for City Entertainment and David Stern producing for KippSter Entertainment. This isn’t the only Rolling Stones film on the horizon. Brett Morgan is directing a doc on the band as part of the Stones’ 50th anniversary celebrations this year. The doc, distributed by Eagle Rock Entertainment, is out in September.