New Lennon Film Underway

18-year-old British actor and former underwear model Aaron Johnson will portray a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, an indie biopic of the former Beatles' turbulent youth, in which his mother Julia (played by Anne-Marie Duff) and aunt Mimi (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) faught for custody of the future icon.

The Weinstein Co. had just recently announced that it had acquired many of the applicable rights to Sam Taylor-Wood's Nowhere Boy, a title inspired by the Beatles' 1965 hit "Nowhere Man." The film's screenplay was penned by Matt Greenhalgh, who also scripted Control, a 2007 biopic of Joy Division's lead singer Ian Curtis. 2007 also saw the release of J.P. Schaefer's Chapter 27, a film telling the story of Lennon's murderer Mark David Chapman, starring Jared Leto (as Chapman), Mark Lindsay Chapman (as Lennon), and Lindsay Lohan.

Nowhere Boy, which started filming in Liverpool just days ago, is based on the book Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon, authored by the late singer's half-sister Julia. It is expected to hit theatres sometime next year.