Ryan Gosling just inked a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures to produce, and possibly star in, a biopic about Busby Berkeley.

The WB Studios just bought the rights to the biography Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley by Jeffrey Spivak. Marc Platt will also produce the film with Gosling. The men worked together previously on the critically acclaimed Drive.

Berkeley was a director and choreographer from the 1920s to the 1970s. He’s best known for creating elaborate musical numbers that involved geometric patterns. Berkeley often used large numbers of showgirls to execute these pieces. His most well-known Hollywood signature dance number involved girls moving to form kaleidoscopic patterns, which used overhead shots.

Berkeley wanted his films to give joy to the people during the Depression-era. He once said: “In an era of breadlines, depression and wars, I tried to help people get away from all the misery…to turn their minds to something else. I wanted to make people happy, if only for an hour.”

He received three Oscar nominations for best dance direction, a category that no longer exists. Some of Berkeley’s work included 42nd Street, She Had to Say Yes, Gold Diggers, and For Me and My Gal.

Along with Drive, Platt has produced several Broadway musicals including the smash-hit Wicked and Legally Blonde. He’s currently working on a Disney adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, which comes out this December.

Because the film is still in the early stages of development, no writer has been hired yet to create a script for Warner Bros. Pictures’ Berkeley film. Chantal Nong, Warner Bros. Pictures’ VP of creative development, will oversee the entire project.

Gosling recently ended production on his directorial debut How to Catch a Monster, another film of Warner Bros. The film stars Eva Mendes, Saoirse Ronan, Christina Hendricks, and Matt Smith.

Image via Wikimedia Commons