Anthony Bourdain biopic cooking at A24 with ‘The Holdovers’ star Dominic Sessa

Let’s preheat the oven, there’s an Anthony Bourdain biopic on the menu.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the ingredients are put together for a film about the beloved chef, traveler and troubadour who became a sensation with the publication of his 2000 memoir “Kitchen Confidential,” and hosted several television series. He tragically died by suicide in 2018.

Dominic Sessa, the young co-star of last year’s Oscar-nominated picture “The Holdovers” is said to be playing the lead in “Tony.” (This suggests the film focuses on Bourdain’s early years, perhaps working at high-end seafood joints in Provincetown and attending the Culinary Institute of America.”

Matt Johnson, the Canadian director of the recent critical fave “Blackberry,” previous satires “Operation Avalanche” and “The Dirties,” as well as the cult television series “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” is at the helm. He will, however, be working off someone else’s screenplay—a first for him. “Tony”’s script was written by actor Todd Bartels and Lou Howe. Howe wrote and directed the 2014 indie “Gabriel,” which starred Rory Culkin as a suicidal young man. (It also featured one of cinema’s finest existential sequences involving corned beef hash.) 

“Tony” is set up at the tony distributor A24, and given the pedigree of its lead and director, is poised to conquer the mindspace of editors at New York and Los Angeles-based lifestyle publications. A recent feature documentary about Bourdain, “Roadrunner,” was released in 2021 and his book “Kitchen Confidential” was adapted into a Fox sitcom that didn’t quite hit in 2005, starring Bradley Cooper. Bourdain’s television work as a host/guide moved from Travel Channel and Food TV to CNN and PBS. He won 8 Emmys out of 22 nominations, including two posthumously.  

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