Sam Rockwell is in talks to join the Amazon Studios biopic on of the country and western singer Merle Haggard.

Rockwell is up for the role of Haggard and will do his own singing of Haggard’s standards.

Based on the Haggard memoir ‘Sing Me Back Home’ the film will be set in the 60s’ and will focus heavily on Merle’s complicated love affair with singer Bonnie Owens – his singing partner and eventual wife. It will also focus on his tumultuous rise from an inmate who served three years at San Quentin – where he was among the prisoners who watched the first prison performance of Johnny Cash in a life-changing moment – to the clubs in vBakersfield hometown, to Capitol Records in Los Angeles.

Robbin Bissell will direct and co-write the script with Merle’s widow Theresa Haggard. Bissell and Haggard will also produce.

Also in news – Cinema release schedules take another hit as ‘A Quiet Place 2’, ‘Mulan’, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and more delayed

Haggard’s notable songs include ‘Okie From Muskogee,’ ‘The Fightin’ Side Of Me,’ ‘Sing Me Back Home,’ ‘The Fugitive,’ ‘Workin’ Man Blues,’ ‘Mama Tried’ and ‘Today I Started Loving You Again’.

Since winning an Oscar for his performance in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ Rockwell has gone on to star in ‘Vice’, ‘Fosse/Verdon’, ‘Jojo Rabbit and ‘Richard Jewell’. His upcoming projects include ‘The One and Only Ivan’ and ‘The Adventures of Drunky’.