Friday Night Lights Creator Peter Berg Is Making A Rihanna Documentary

Friday Night Lights Creator Peter Berg Is Making A Rihanna Documentary

Peter Berg has directed plenty of incredible projects, but one of his absolute best is the television show Friday Night Lights. The series was wrought with such a deft perspective, wringing universal themes about love, loss, and family out of a small, football-obsessed town called Dillon with an unsurpassed level of storytelling. So if Berg brings even half of that attention to detail, humor and grace to his recently announced documentary on Rihanna, then it has the potential to become as iconic as the singer herself.

Berg already helms a film/TV production company called Film 44, but announced that he’s starting a new one called Film 45 that will specialize in “non-scripted and branded entertainment for film, TV and other platforms.” Berg is founding the company with TV/documentary producer Matthew Goldberg, and their initial project will attempt to give Rihanna her own Don’t Look Back.

Berg was the first one to cast the singer in a film role, 2012’s Battleship, and for the documentary he aims to give us “[an] unfiltered look into Rihanna’s life and how she’s ascended to become a global icon.” Now seems like the appropriate time too, because as Berg further notes, she is “a young artist at the top of her professional field.” But the focus will be on Rihanna as a person, not just her music. Berg called it “much more a character study than a music film.”

Given his past success in building flawless fictional characters, I fully trust his ability to frame Rihanna on film. While we’re on the subject though, these demos of new track “Higher” suggest she’s going in a whole different direction on her new album. Maybe we’ll get to see some of that decision-making process in Berg’s documentary? Fingers crossed for a McCartney cameo, too.

[Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images.]

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