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A movie about the life of beloved late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is in the works at A24 from BlackBerry director Matt Johnson, according to reports.
Dominic Sessa, who starred in Alexander Payne’s Academy Award-nominated film The Holdovers (in his feature film debut), is in talks to play Anthony Bourdain.
Bourdain, a renowned writer, chef, and journalist known for his book Medium Raw and his acclaimed CNN series Parts Unknown, passed away in 2018 at the age of 61 years old after committing suicide while on location in France.
At this time, it is unclear which part of Bourdain’s life the film will focus on and how many years it will span.
“Sources also tell Deadline that A24 is in negotiations to acquire the package. Tim and Trevor White of Star Thrower and Matt Miller are producing along with director Matt Johnson. Lou Howe and Todd Bartels penned the script.”
“Bourdain came up cooking in various restaurants across Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s, including being the exec chef at Brasserie Les Halles, but it was his essay collection about the ugly secrets of restaurants that put him on the map. Following their publication in The New Yorker, Bourdain became an instant star on the media food scene due to his tell-it-like-it-is tone that audiences were not accustomed to.”
A Morgan Neville-directed documentary about Bourdain, titled Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, was released in 2021.
In addition to Sessa being one of the breakout stars of 2023, BlackBerry was one of the surprise hits of last year, as the film has a 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and had a lead performance from longtime It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia star Glenn Howertown that riveted film fans, which certainly bodes well for Sessa’s prospective performance as Tony Bourdain.