HBO preps Scientology, Cobain docs

US premium cablenet HBO has ordered a documentary about the Church of Scientology directed by Alex Gibney and another exploring the life of late rock musician Kurt Cobain.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is being produced by Gibney’s prodco Jigsaw Productions and will explore the controversial organisation and its roots, as well as some of its most famous members such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

The special will be based on Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Beliefs, and follows on from Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa, which exposed the dark side of the Catholic Church.

Gibney, who also worked on Lance Armstrong doc The Armstrong Lie, is currently putting the “finishing touches” to the special, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news.

It is the latest show to explore the Church of Scientology, after C21 revealed that the BBC had funded a doc from Simon Chinn, the producer behind Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man, and Louis Theroux.

HBO will also debut a revealing documentary about musician Cobain, to be exec produced by his daughter and directed by Brett Morgen, in the US next year.

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck will feature the songwriter’s never-seen-before home movies, recordings, artwork, photography, journals and songbooks, as well as songs and performances by the seminal US rock band he fronted, Nirvana.

Although numerous documentaries have been filmed about Cobain, who took his own life in 1994, HBO’s is described as the first to be made with the cooperation of the rock star’s family.

Visual artist Frances Bean Cobain, Cobain’s daughter, is executive producer. Morgen, who also shot HBO’s doc about The Rolling Stones, Crossfire Hurricane, will write, direct and produce.

The feature doc is a coproduction between HBO Documentary Films and Universal Pictures International Entertainment Content Group, in association with Public Road Productions and The End of Music.

It will be released internationally next year following HBO’s US premiere.

Morgen said: “Once I stepped into Kurt’s archive, I discovered more than 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, a vast array of art projects, countless hours of home movies, and more than 4,000 pages of writings that together help paint an intimate portrait of an artist who rarely revealed himself to the media.”