John Lennon Biopic In The Works

(andPOP) - The early life of ex-Beatle John Lennon will be turned into a movie based on a controversial book by his half-sister.

Plans for the film "Nowhere Boy" were set into motion Thursday after it was awarded funding by the U.K. Film Council.

Matt Greenhalgh, who wrote the critically acclaimed Ian Curtis biopic "Control," will pen the script based on "Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon" by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird.

Released in 2007, the book attracted controversy because of Baird's portrayal of Mary (Mimi) Smith, the aunt who raised Lennon from the age of four, as a woman who was extremely jealous of her younger sister, Lennon and Baird's mother.

Scriptwriter Greenhalgh told BBC News that the book took him "into a world that illuminated so much about this legendary genius. I could see the drama and film immediately - the women in his life, the men who weren't, the birth of rock and roll, all imposing on a brilliantly complicated adolescent mind."

He added, "Without this story we would never have heard The Beatles. Can you imagine that?"

It won't be Greenhalgh's first time adapting a book to film -- he wrote "Control" based on "Touching From A Distance," written by Curtis' wife Debbie.