In a reversal from 2021’s releases, the biographical works still in development are heavily weighted toward biopics. (That’s not to say there aren’t documentaries in the works, too, it’s just that they’re not getting press yet).

Jared Leto is slated to play Andy Warhol, in a film based on Victor Bockris’s biography of the artist. Leto was originally rumored to be in consideration for the role several years ago. Legendary record producer Tom Wilson is the subject of Tom Wilson: Lost in Transition. The acts Wilson recorded included The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Sun Ra, and Cecil Taylor. Several other figures from the music world will be featured in forthcoming biopics. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, seen in The Queen’s Gambit, will play Beatles producer Brian Epstein in Midas Man. Pete Davidson has been cast as punk rocker Joey Ramone in I Slept with Joey Ramone. Queen Latifah and Jamie Foxx are executive producers of Mahalia!—another look at the life of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. The movie is based on a 1992 biography of Jackson by Darlene Donloe. A biopic of Sammy Davis Jr., based on a memoir by his daughter Tracey Davis, is in production. Another film and music star, Doris Day, will be the subject of a docuseries based on Doris Day: Her Own Story, written by A. E. Hotchner. Kaley Cuoco will play Day and is also one of the producers. Another project about an actor is the authorized film biography Being Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Documentary, scheduled to be released in 2022.

Jamie Foxx takes off his producer’s hat to appear on screen as Mike Tyson in Tyson, a series that originally started off as a feature film. (TBC mentioned it in last year’s roundup of biography on film). Martin Scorsese is executive producing, and the filmmakers have the cooperation of their subject. The makers of Iron Mike, a series being made for Hulu, aren’t so lucky, as Tyson has bad-mouthed the project. For the latter, Trevante Rhodes is cast as the boxer and the creative team includes the writer and director of the 2017 biopic I, Tonya, about skater Tonya Harding.

Other sports figures will also be featured in upcoming films and series. Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s is the source for a series that will air on HBO. The biography If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige by Donald Spivey will serve as a major source for a series about baseball’s Negro Leagues, being made by Apple Studios.

Apple Plus plans a multi-season anthology series called The Crowded Room, based on the true stories of people who have struggled with and learned to successfully live with mental illness. In the first season, Tom Holland will play Billy Milligan, the first person acquitted of a crime because of dissociative identity disorder. The season is based on The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes and will be written by Akiva Goldsman, whose films include A Beautiful Mind.

Biographies serve as part of the source material for several other serious projects. Amazon Studio’s Marked Man, about Black activist Marcus Garvey, will be based on Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey by Colin Grant. Winston Duke, who starred in Black Panther, will play Garvey. The 2021 release Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy by Anne Sebba is the inspiration for a television production by Miramax Films. Sebba will serve as a consultant and executive producer on the project. Turning from politics to science, Mark Gordon Pictures has bought the rights to Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race. The book will be the source for a docuseries. Finally, also making its way to television is The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale, with the writer and director of the 2019 Hulu series Fosse/Verdon taking part.