Hayley Kiyoko pitches lesbian Pirates of the Caribbean as dream project
Hayley Kiyoko wants to make a lesbian Pirates of the Caribbean.
The singer, songwriter and director said her dream project is a pirate show or film pitched as “Keira Knightley, but gay” and “very gay and fantastical,” speaking on Thursday night in Beverly Hills, according to Variety. No studio is attached. It was a wish, not an announcement.
She spoke during “Saving Queer Media,” a panel at the offices of talent agency UTA. She appeared alongside film-makers Angela Robinson, Adam Shankman and Wash Westmoreland. The discussion was moderated by Variety’s Marc Malkin and organised by UTA Proud as a fundraiser for Outfest, the Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ film festival, according to Variety.
Kiyoko made her directing debut earlier this year with “Girls Like Girls,” a young adult romance aimed at teen audiences and based on her song and novel of the same name. She said she first tried to get the film greenlit, the formal go-ahead to start production, on the strength of the song alone. Financing only followed after she wrote the book and it became a bestseller. She has described the path to the screen as a 10-year journey, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is a queer coming-of-age drama about two teenage girls falling in love over a summer, and co-stars Zach Braff, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Kiyoko said she now hopes to adapt her second novel, “Where There’s Room for Us,” which she described as a period piece set in the past.
She was not the only one to share a wish-list title. Shankman said his dream project is a big-screen version of “Spring Awakening,” the rock musical about teenagers in late 19th-century Germany that won the Tony, the top US theatre award. An off-Broadway revival begins previews on Nov. 27 ahead of opening night on Dec. 17. Westmoreland said he wants to adapt Chris Bryant’s 2020 book “The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels Who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler.”
For fans, this means the pirate idea lives as a public pitch for now. Kiyoko did not present it as a deal in progress or name a buyer. It was one director telling a room of queer film-makers the kind of large, romantic adventure she would like to make next.
