Love, Simon director Greg Berlanti has been tapped to direct a feature biopic about Hollywood star Rock Hudson for Universal Pictures.
The film will be adapted from Mark Griffin’s forthcoming biography, All That Heavens Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson. Production is set to be led by Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Film Corp., with Sherry Marsh representing Marsh Productions & Entertainment, Inc. At this stage the project is still seeking a screenwriter to adapt Griffin’s book for the screen.
Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Rock Hudson remains one of the most recognizable figures of classic Hollywood. He earned broad fame in the 1950s and 1960s as a leading man and heartthrob, and he received an Academy Award nomination for his role in the 1956 epic Giant. Beyond his on-screen achievements, Hudson’s life and legacy are inseparable from the cultural and social issues his story later highlighted, particularly the personal and public complexities surrounding his sexual orientation and his illness.
Berlanti’s adaptation will draw on Griffin’s research to explore Hudson’s rise to stardom and the private life he guarded for decades. Griffin’s biography, which serves as the source material for the film, promises a comprehensive look at both Hudson’s career and the personal battles he faced. The book’s title invokes Hudson’s work in the 1955 film All That Heaven Allows, a moment in his career often cited as part of his enduring screen legacy.
The intended biopic arrives amid continuing interest in films that examine Hollywood’s golden age through a modern lens, and in personal stories that illuminate how fame, privacy and identity intersect. The project will need a writer to shape the biography into a screenplay that balances Hudson’s public accomplishments with the private pressures he endured. Producers Berlanti, Schechter and Marsh bring experience in film and television production to the collaboration, under Universal’s studio banner.
Hudson’s life story carries particular historical resonance: after years of maintaining a private personal life, he was diagnosed with HIV in 1984, a fact that was not public knowledge at the time. His illness and subsequent death in 1985 made him one of the first major celebrities whose death was linked to complications from AIDS, and his passing helped raise public awareness of the epidemic and prompted conversations about stigma and the need for medical research. Any film about Hudson will likely address these events sensitively, situating them within the social context of the 1970s and 1980s as well as Hudson’s own career.
Greg Berlanti is well known for his extensive work in film and television; as a director and producer, he has overseen numerous projects across genres. In addition to directing Love, Simon, Berlanti’s feature credits include the 2010 romantic comedy Life As We Know It. As a producer, he has been involved in a wide range of television series and films. His attachment to the Rock Hudson project signals a studio-level commitment to telling a layered, character-driven biographical story.
At this point the production remains in early development. Key creative steps still to be completed include hiring a screenwriter, finalizing the script, and assembling a principal cast. The filmmakers and Universal will also need to determine the film’s scope, whether it focuses on Hudson’s entire life and career or concentrates on specific turning points. Given the sensitivity and historical weight of Hudson’s life, the adaptation will require careful research and nuanced storytelling to honor both the subject and the record presented in Griffin’s biography.