Oscar winner Sam Rockwell is eyeing the lead role in a biopic of country music legend Merle Haggard.
US entertainment trade website Deadline, which first reported the story, says the biopic would reunite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star Rockwell with filmmaker Robin Bissell, who directed him opposite Taraji P Henson in the recent The Best of Enemies. That film told the true story of a school integration stand-off in the US state of North Carolina in 1971.
The upcoming biopic from Amazon Studios will be co-written by director Bissell and Haggard's widow, Theresa Haggard, based on the late star's memoir, Sing Me Back Home.
It is reported that the film will focus on the 1960s as Haggard moved to put his criminal past behind him and establish a music career. Haggard's hardscrabble early life saw him escaping from numerous juvenile facilities in the US state of California and he later served a number of years in San Quentin Prison. He was among the inmates who saw Johnny Cash's iconic performance in San Quentin. In 1972 Haggard was pardoned by the then-governor of California, future US President Ronald Reagan.
Haggard became a household name in 1969 when his song Okie From Muskogee went to Number One. He went on to record music for more than 40 years, releasing dozens of albums and scoring many more chart hits. He was a pioneer of country music's 'Bakersfield sound' - known for its blend of twang and steel guitar - as well as the 'outlaw country' genre.
In 2000 he found a new generation of fans with his album If I Could Only Fly, a haunting tour-de-force that dealt with Haggard's past struggles with addiction and the onslaught of time.
In 2010 Haggard was honoured by the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for his lifetime contribution to the performing arts in the US. Also honoured in the same year were Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, composer Jerry Herman and choreographer Bill T Jones. He had been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994.
Haggard, whose other Number One US country hits included I'm a Lonesome Fugitive and Sing Me Back Home, died from complications from pneumonia on April 6, 2016 - his 79th birthday.
