Melissa Barrera to join new biopic ‘The Collaboration’

Melissa Barrera (‘In the Heights’ ‘Scream 5’) joins the new film ‘The Collaboration’, focusing on the famously talented artist partner Basquiat& Andy Warhol, with the original play starring Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany returning. Daniel Brühl also stars.

Based on the play of the same name by Anthony McCarten, the writer of ‘Theory of Everything’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, the play’s director Kwame Kwei-Armah also continues to direct the film version, which revolves around the relationship between two iconic artists: starting in the summer of 1984, superstar Andy Warhol (Paul Bettany) and art world’s newest prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeremy Pope), or Basquiat, entered into a collaboration to create one of the most talked about exhibitions in modern art history, but could these two creative giants coexist with such opposing views on life and art? (Of course things eventually worked out and the two men’s work now sells for tens of millions of dollars)

Daniel Brühl plays legendary art manager Bruno Bischofberger, who first proposed a series of collaborations between Basquiat and Andy Warhol, two artists who were at very different stages in their lives and careers in the 1980s.

‘The Collaboration’ play premiered at London’s Little Vic Theatre in February this year, and will continue on Broadway after the film is made, with the creators all returning for previews on November 29 and an opening on December 20.

In reality, Andy Warhol is a world-renowned Pop artist, while Basquiat entered the mainstream with his street graffiti in New York City. The two men, with very different backgrounds and ages, developed an unforgettable friendship that is much talked about.

But the young Basquiat began to sulk after one of their joint exhibitions was heavily criticized, and then Vohl’s death in 1987 dealt him a major blow.

In 1988, Basquiat, who had not yet reached the age of 28, died suddenly of an overdose.   

Related Post: Daniel Brühl joins “The Collaboration”, which tells about Warhol’s artistic past.