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Frank Lloyd Wright doesn’t seem like someone who would be the subject of a romantic film. However, his affair with Chicago society matron Mamah Borthwick Cheney was immortalized in the book “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan.  It’s now been optioned by Lionsgate and is set to hit the big screen.

Lionsgate president Alli Shearmur has said “Loving Frank unfolds in a unique historical milieu, yet it speaks to a fundamental aspect of human nature, that you can’t help who you fall in love with.”

There’s not very much information about the project, no casting yet, no director. But John Burnham Schwartz, Reservation Road, has been set to write the script. Escape Artists partners Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are going to produce the film along with Stuart Parr and Allison Sarofilm.

I’m wondering what star they’ll go after to play the architect who changed the way we look at architecture. It might take a big name to get audiences to pay for tickets to see a film about an architect and a society matron’s pre-WWI love affair. Will the story of their romance be as dramatic as Wright’s Falling Water or the Guggenheim Museum? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Who do you think should play Frank Lloyd Wright? Who can make the architect a compelling romantic figure on film?