Start singing "Ain't That Good News": A Sam Cooke biopic has taken a significant step toward becoming a reality. The screenwriters behind the all-Beatles musical "Across the Universe" have finished their adaptation of Peter Guralnick's definitive biography of Sam Cooke for ABKCO, which owns Cooke's publishing and the bulk of his master recordings. ABKCO CEO Jody Klein is now looking for a director.

"We had been looking for a long time for a writer to develop Peter's book," Klein told Billboard, "and it clicked when we met them. They understood the artist, they understood the times. It's one of those things, like when you meet the love of your life and you know you have met your (future) wife. They have written a fantastic script."

Cooke is widely regarded as the first significant R&B performer to appeal to black and white audiences as well as multiple generations through songs such as "You Send Me," "Twistin' the Night Away" and "Only Sixteen." Shortly before he was murdered in 1964, Cooke penned and recorded "A Change Is Gonna Come," a song often listed as the most significant musical piece to emerge from the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and '60s.

Screenwriters Clement and La Frenais have worked together since the late 1960s when they collaborated on numerous British television shows. Their first major music film project  was 1991's "The Commitments"; their most recent film is the U2-rooted "Killing Bono," which opens April 1 in the U.K. but does not yet have a U.S. distributor.