Authorized Biopic The Big O: Roy Orbison Will Memorialize the Late Rock 'n' Roll Singer

Roy Orbison, the American rock ‘n’ roll legend who brought us songs like “Oh, Pretty Woman” and “Only the Lonely,” will be memorialized in a forthcoming biopic, the first authorized by his estate.

“The movie will mirror a Roy Orbison song: having triumph and tragedy, sometimes losing the girl and sometimes getting the girl, and ending on a high note,” his son Alex Orbison told Deadline. “Our father’s life story has an undeniably cinematic quality to it.”

Orbison—once called “the greatest singer in the world” by Elvis Presley—did have a life packed with the stuff of dramas, from career highs to sudden slumps to tragic accidents that led to the deaths of close family members.

The script will be written by Ray Gideon and Bruce Evans, the duo who gave us popular movies like Stand by Me and Starman, so The Big O: Roy Orbison will be in good hands. It promises to be an exciting film that could introduce Orbison, who died in 1988, to a new generation.

Find a 1979 interview with Orbison below via the Paste Cloud.

Authorized Biopic The Big O: Roy Orbison Will Memorialize the Late Rock ‘n’ Roll Singer