Jeremy Renner Developing Steve McQueen Biopic

Dude comes out of nowhere to rack up two Oscar nominations, promptly joins three giant franchises, and now he's planning to star in a film about one of Hollywood's greatest icons.

Jeremy Renner has formed The Combine, a production company, with the express purpose of developing a Steve McQueen biopic in which he would star, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

McQueen was the very embodiment of cool, so it takes some cojones grandes to even think about taking on the role, much less developing it for yourself. And yet, if there's a guy working in Hollywood right now with the chops and the cool to take on the role, it's Renner. He's got the build, the general look, and most importantly the no-nonsense manliness to play McQueen.

How much of a badass was McQueen? Bruce Lee once said of him, "That son of a gun got the toughness in him."

And just as importantly, Renner's got the skills, because if this film is done right, it's gonna get dark, weird and sad toward the end. After years of smoking, McQueen developed mesothelioma, and when U.S. doctors refused to operate because it was too advanced, he went to Mexico for all manner of bizarre, desperate treatments, as his widow Barbara explained years later.

"As for treatments, I haven't thought about it much. I remember the veggie juice he was always drinking and the calf liver blood. Yuck. I'm sure you know about the coffee enemas," she told Roger Worthington in 2006.

There were better actors and better looking men than Steve McQueen, but nobody was cooler, so be sure to do him justice, Mr. Renner.

In the meantime, look for Renner in "Thor" on May 6, the new "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol" on Dec. 16 and "The Bourne Legacy" on Aug. 3, 2012.

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