Ang Lee is again teaming with Focus Features CEO James Schamus to direct the gay-themed Woodstock memoir Taking Woodstock.
Focus will produce and Schamus will adapt Elliot Tiber’s 2007 book, Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life. It centers on the colorful life of a Greenwich Village-based interior designer and part-time Catskills hotel manager who headed the Bethel, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce. He issued the permit for the legendary 1969 concert on his neighbor Max Yasgur’s farm.
Lee and Schamus’ most recent collaboration was Focus’ Chinese-language drama Lust, Caution, which earned $66 million worldwide. The writing-directing pair had their breakthrough indie hit with the gay-themed comedy The Wedding Banquet in 1993, and Lee directed Focus’ biggest hit, the gay Western Brokeback Mountain, in 2005.
There have been several Woodstock docus but few narrative films touching on the music festival, one of the few being Tony Goldwyn’s A Walk on the Moon.
Tiber wrote his Square One Publishers memoir with Tom Monte.
Credit: Hollywood Reporter
