Maybe it's the ongoing success of Lee Daniels' The Butler, or perhaps just the start of soulful autumnal nights, but something has put us in a jazzy, Louis Armstrong kind of mood.

All of which is enough to make one wonder if Something Wonderful, a long-gestating movie about Louis Armstrong from Butler star Forest Whitaker, still has a shot of getting off the ground. The man at the controls says it does.

Whitaker tells The Times that he'd still like to direct and act in the independent production, and that he’s been working to develop the script with the veteran screenwriter Ron Bass (Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club).