From the Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit :

Two filmmakers are so worried about the handling of late INXS singer Michael Hutchence’s legacy that they are making a movie about the Australian rocker before it gets tarnished any further.

The project, “Slide Away,” has been in development for some time, but gained momentum following last year’s reality TV show “Rock Star: INXS,” where unknown singers vied to fill Hutchence’s shoes, according to producer Clark Westerman.

Unimpressed with the low-rated series, Westerman persuaded an initially reluctant Nick Egan, a British music video director and Hutchence pal who shot many of the band’s clips, to take the helm of the project.

Hutchence’s death in November 1997 made international headlines and stunned fans. He was found in a Sydney hotel room, the apparent victim either of suicide or accidental death via autoerotic asphyxiation. He was 37.

Westerman said, “That is not the memory of what we are after, and that’s not the story of who the man is. What we are aiming for is the journey through a person’s life via their head.”

In other movie news, “Dumping Doskocil : The Strangulated Beatoffs Story” remains in what Tinseltown types like to call “turnaround”.