Al Pacino Phil Spector Biopic

Hollywood legend Al Pacino has been cast as eccentric music icon Phil Spector in a HBO Films TV movie to be written and directed by David Mamet, Britain’s Daily Mirror has learned.

The “Wall of Sound” pioneer, who recorded with iconic acts like The Beatles, Sonny & Cher, and The Ronettes as one of the most prolific producers of the 1960s, is serving 19 years-to-life in a California prison for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson. In 2009, Spector, a noted gun enthusiast, was convicted of second degree murder for shooting Clarkson after his first trial ended in a hung jury. The aloof 70-year-old maintains his innocence: Spector claims Lana was a virtual stranger who committed suicide after accompanying him to his obscure Los Angeles castle following a meeting at a restaurant earlier in the evening

The yet-to-be-untitled Spector biopic is currently in preproduction.

The TV movie circuit has been good to Pacino in the past year. In September, Pacino, also 70, won an Emmy award for playing Dr. Jack Kevorkian — the Michigan MD convicted of assisting in the suicides of dozens of terminally-ill patients — in the HBO made-for-TV movie You Don’t Know Jack.