'The Inheritance' Playwright Matthew López Will Write Tennessee Williams Biopic

"The Inheritance" playwright Matthew López will reportedly pen the script for an upcoming biopic about the legendary American playwright Tennessee Williams.

The film is based on the novel "Leading Men," which centers on Williams' relationship with his partner Frank Merlo. "Leading Men" was written by Christopher Castellani, according to Variety.

Luca Guadagnino and Peter Spears will produce. They're most famous for their film adaptation of "Call Me By Your Name."

Williams and Merlo's relationship is described as "one of the most creatively inspiring love stories of the twentieth century." The pair met in the late 1940s, embarking on a passionate - and often tumultuous - love affair, ending with Merlo's death from lung cancer in 1963.

Set in 1950s Italy and New York, the film "explores the burden of fame and the complex negotiations of life in the shadows of greatness and ambition, all through the eyes of the muse who inspired one of America's foremost playwrights."

One of America's greatest playwrights, Tennessee Williams wrote fiction and motion picture screenplays, but he is acclaimed primarily for his plays, nearly all of which are set in the South, but which at their best rise above regionalism to approach universal themes. Tennessee Williams drew heavily on his family experiences in his writings. When "The Glass Menagerie" hit Broadway in 1945, it not only changed Tennessee Williams' life, it revolutionized American theatre. "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Night of the Iguana" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" are some of his other masterpieces.

Among his many awards, Williams won two Pulitzer Prizes and four New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. In addition to 25 full-length plays, Williams produced dozens of short plays and screenplays, two novels, a novella, 60 short stories, more than 100 poem and an autobiography. His works have been translated into at least 27 languages, and countless productions of his work have been staged around the world.

López's latest play, "The Inheritance," is nominated for eleven Tony Awards. The play is a two-part, seven-hour opus that follows a group of younger gay men living in New York City, as they debate what they owe to the generations that came before them. His other plays include "The Whipping Man," "The Legend of Georgia McBride," and the book for "Some Like It Hot."

Watch a trailer for "The Inheritance" here: