HBO picks up Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace film starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon

We’ve seen Michael Douglas play gay before (remember on Will & Grace when he was the cop chasing after Will?) and we’ve seen Matt Damon play gay (the title role in The Talented Mr. Ripley).

But playing gay together? That should be something!

Douglas will star as the flamboyant pianist Liberace in Behind the Candelabra with Steven Soderbergh directing. Damon will play Scott Thorson, Liberace’s live-in lover.

The film was conceived as a theatrical release but executive producer Jerry Weintraub decided on pay cable after working with HBO on a documentary — His Way — about him.

“We’ve been working on it for a very long time,” Weintraub told TheWrap this week. “And usually those are the best ones — the ones you work on the longest.”

Weintraub acknowledged that the project “is a tough one” due to the subject matter: “You’re doing a picture about a gay couple — in a time when gays did not come out of the closet.”

He added: “It’s a fun movie because Liberace is a fun guy — I knew him very, very well. But there’s a dark side as well. It’s very dark and it’s very light.”

The movie begins production next summer and will shoot in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Palm Springs.

Source: The Wrap