Brett Ratner is set to direct "
Playboy," the Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment film about the life of
Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Brian Grazer is producing, and John Hoffman is writing the screenplay.
Grazer optioned Hefner's life rights several years ago. The producer's "8 Mile" scribe Scott Silver tried it as a musical, and Oliver Stone developed several drafts. Making a film of Hefner's long life as icon of the sexual revolution has proven difficult, but Ratner and Hoffman found a way to do it that pleased Grazer and the 81-year-old Hefner, who approved the take late last week in a meeting at the
Playboy Mansion.