When it comes to getting a gang of dreadful personality-free cockmunches to sing on vaguely low-rent TV shows, Simon Cowell is undoubtedly a world leader.
But it's fair to say that Simon Cowell should never ever be allowed to even think about making movies for a second. Not even for a second. He should be forced to wear high-voltage electrodes or an exploding neck collar just to stop him thinking about making movies.
We're basing this assessment on one thing and one thing alone here – Simon Cowell is going to make a biopic based on the life of Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts. Someone find us the number of a reputable exploding neck collar salesman quick.
Simon Cowell is in a highly enviable position at the moment. All he does is go on shows like American Idol and X Factor once a week, yawn a bit, tell everyone that they're shit and then waltz off home with a bag of money that weighs more than your house. It's what Simon Cowell is good at, and he should stick to it.
But that's hardly likely to happen when Simon Cowell so plainly wants to be a movie mogul. The signs aren't good – if you can remember the American Idol movie From Justin To Kelly, you'll a) have probably spent quite a lot of time since trying to lobotomise yourself with a Swiss army knife and b) seen that films based on Simon Cowell reality TV shows suck beyond belief. And yet her persists.
Simon Cowell had wanted to make an X Factor movie but, on hearing that it probably contravened the Geneva Convention in several places, he's shifted his focus again. And not for the better, either. Simon Cowell wants to make a movie based of the life of Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts, as The Press Association reports:
The story of Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts is to be made into a Hollywood film produced by Simon Cowell. The former Carphone Warehouse salesman became the unlikely star of the TV talent show with his performance of opera classic Nessun Dorma. Now he is to get the big screen treatment after Paramount Pictures snapped up the rights to his story, according to industry magazine Variety. His rags-to-riches tale is being hailed as "another Billy Elliot".
Just what the world needs – another Billy Elliot. Maybe the Paul Potts story will become just as big and get turned into an Elton John-penned musical as well. It'd be an extravaganza, that's for sure. Admittedly the thing that people liked about Billy Elliot – the innocent-eyed boy – won't be there, replaced by an overweight dim-looking Welsh bloke, but who cares about that?
It'll be interesting to see how Hollywood interprets the Paul Potts story, though, because if the movie ever comes within a million miles of reality we're going to be pretty surprised. What we suspect will happen is that everything will be blown out of all proportions. Instead of a fat bloke with dreams of becoming an opera singer, chances are that the movie will turn Paul Potts into a buff soldier with dreams of becoming a laser-gunner in the space war against the Zargathins – an evil race of aliens led by the universe's wickedest dictator, adorable toothless seven-year-old Connie Talbot.
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Mark Byrn says
If they’re going to make a movie on Paul Potts, they better move as fast as they did with the CD release. As Internet celebrity status is as fleeting as a refresh of the Matt Drudge homepage, Paul is already on the steep down slope. While he can warble out popera tunes on the show circuit for a year or so, I think his future lies in being a paid pitchman, perhaps in the likes of Subway sandwich megastar Jared Fogle.