Netflix acquires Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein film

Netflix has acquired all rights to an untitled Leonard Bernstein film that Bradley Cooper will direct, produce and star in from a script he has co-written Oscar winner Josh Singer.

Production is due to begin early next year on the project, which will span over 30 years in telling the complex story of the marriage between the legendary composer and his Chilean born actress wife Felicia Montealegre.

Martin Scorsese had intended to direct a Bernstein film at Paramount when Singer was the sole scriptwriter, but stepped aside to allow Cooper to take over, while he focused on completing The Irishman.

Scorsese is still involved as a producer, alongside other heavyweights, including Steven Spielberg, Cooper and his Joint Effort producing partner (and Joker director) Todd Phillips, Kristie Macosko Krieger, The Irishman and Joker double Oscar-nominated producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff, and Fred Berner and Amy Durning. 

Netflix is expected to give the film a significant theatrical release before the film premieres on its streaming site, just as it did for Scorsese on The Irishman, as well as Marriage Story, The Two Popes and several other awards season contenders.

Cooper has previously collaborated with Phillips at Joint Effort on the 11-Oscar-nominated billion-dollar grosser Joker and the eight-Oscar-nominated A Star Is Born. Cooper next stars in the Guillermo del Toro-directed Nightmare Alley.