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Black List writer Young Il Kim has been awarded the Sundance Institute’s Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant for his original untitled script based on the life of Stephen Hawking.
Kim will develop the biopic project with the creative backing of Sundance Institute while the Arlook Group, one of the producers of the 2012 David Duchovny-Vera Farmiga indie Goats, is attached to produce.
Hawking, who gained international acclaim after authoring his best-seller A Brief History of Time, has ALS, a disease that slowly paralyzed him and rendered him almost speechless. Despite that, he had been married twice and has three children, and has become a major scientist is the fields of cosmology and quantum physics.
“We are delighted to join with Sundance Institute in supporting Young Il Kim’s exciting feature screenplay about a seminal period in young Stephen Hawking’s romantic, scientific and physical life,” said Doron Weber, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s vp programs. “This nuanced portrait of the most famous scientist in the world as a young man is notable for clearly elucidating his brilliant ideas while showing us the underlying humanity of the man and the importance of love in his life.”
The Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant is a Sundance Institute initiative that supports and encourages projects that tackle scientific themes and showcase scientists and mathematicians.
It also gives out feature film prizes during Sundance, with movies such as Another Earth and Robot and Frank among the awardees.
Kim is an up-and-comer who gained Hollywood’s attention when his script Rodham made it onto the 2012 Black List. That script is another biopic project, focusing on the early life of Hillary Clinton (nee Rodham) when she had to make a decision between her blossoming political career and her desire to join Bill Clinton.
Kim is represented by UTA, the Arlook Group and attorney P.J. Shapiro at Ziffren.
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