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A feature film that will explore the personal life of James Dean is currently being developed by writer-director Guy Guido. The filmmaker has acquired the rights to late author William Bast’s 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean, and plans to adapt it into a biopic of the same name, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Guido has already penned the script for the movie. He’s now meeting with potential producers and is in the process of casting the lead roles for the film.

In his book, Bast described meeting Dean at the UCLA theater program at the age of 19. The author wrote in his memoir that they then became roommates, close friends and eventually lovers.

Bast claimed they kept their fling private at the time to avoid hurting Dean’s career. Once he began garnering fame, the East of Eden star had relationships with female stars, including Barbara Glenn and Ursula Andress. Bast, meanwhile, remained hopeful that he and Dean would soon live together again.

Five years after meeting the author, the actor died in a car accident in 1955 at the age of 24. Two of his signature movies, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, were subsequently released posthumously.

Guido’s screenplay is set from the first meeting between Bast and Dean to the actor’s death on Sept. 30, 1955. The biopic’s announcement was made yesterday, timed to the 69th anniversary of Dean’s passing in a car accident. Bast later died in 2015 at the age of 84.

The biographical film will follow Bast and Dean as they navigated their evolving relationship. It will also chronicle the writer coming to terms with being gay during the 1950s.

While discussing the screen adaptation in a statement, Guido said: “I have been a fan and historian of James Dean since I was 18 years old, so I knew about his ‘friend’ Willie, even when information about their relationship was straight-washed by the Hollywood machine. As a filmmaker, I love telling the story of a celebrity’s life in their coming-of-age period. As a gay man, I was particularly drawn to Bast’s unique story.”

Guido, who previously helmed the 2020 Hulu documentary Madonna and the Breakfast Club, is focused on doing justice to the story with careful casting choices. The filmmaker is being particularly careful in casting the roles of Dean, Bast and Bast’s glamorous single mother.

“I am obsessed with getting the look right when it comes to casting and directing a film about a famous person,” the filmmaker explained. “I want people to feel as if they are watching the real James Dean on the screen.”

The movie adaption of Surviving James Dean doesn’t yet have financing. But Guido feels hopeful about finding the right fit after he had recent meetings about the project.

“I want to find just the right team to partner with,” the helmer continued. He wants to work with “Producers that understand the gravity and importance of a story like this, especially in today’s divided social climate.”

Surviving James Dean‘s screen adaptation comes after Dean’s life was previously chronicled on film in several projects. One of Bast’s first novels about his relationship with the Oscar-nominated actor, James Dean: A Biography, was adapted into a 1976 movie.

The 1997 film, James Dean: Race with Destiny, focused on his love story with Italian actress Pier Angeli. In 2001, James Franco earned a Golden Globe for playing the young actor in the television biopic, James Dean, which chronicled the titular actor’s career.

Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean explored the performer’s bisexuality and personal life before he became an actor. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 star Dane DeHaan played Dean in the 2015 film Life. The biopic chronicles his friendship with Life photographer Dennis Stock, who was played by Robert Pattinson.