“Dead Circus” Rolling Into Town, With James Marsden as Charles Manson

A fictional tale about the Manson Family's connection to the mysterious death of rocker Bobby Fuller, is heading for the big screen.

"Dead Circus," based on the 2002 book by John Kaye, and starring James Marsden as Charles Manson, is set to start filming this summer, reported Deadline. First -time director Adam Davenport adapted the screenplay with Kaye's help.

We're happy for Marsden, whose talents deserve a career better than the one he's had thus far. Here's hoping he crushes this role.

The real-life Fuller, best known for his hit single "I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)," was found dead in 1966, in his car, his face and chest covered with scars and his lung filled with gasoline. Despite this, his death officially ruled a suicide.

Melissa Leo will play a former Manson Family member who comes forward with clues to what really happened to Fuller, with Michael C. Hall playing one of Fuller's managers.

Here's the synopsis from the publisher's site:

It’s 1986. Gene Burk is an ex-cop, fanatical record collector, and private eye. Devastated by the death of his fiancée, Gene becomes obsessed with an unsolved mystery from his days with the LAPD: the late-sixties death of up-and-coming rockabilly star Bobby Fuller. As Gene attempts to reconstruct the circumstances that led to Fuller’s demise, he is unexpectedly contacted by a survivor of the Manson Family who needs Gene’s help to bury her past. As Gene travels back in history to the moment Manson partied alongside Bobby Fuller and the Beach Boys, John Kaye spins a masterful, disturbing portrait of twenty years in Los Angeles, of the promise of the sixties and the hellish realities of the morning after.

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