French singer Serge Gainsbourg and his daughter Charlotte are shown together in Paris on Feb. 23, 1986. Gainsbourg died in 1991. (Frederic de la Mure CMC/PN/Reuters)

Hollywood studio Universal is venturing for the first time into the French-language film market with a biopic about singer, actor and musical innovator Serge Gainsbourg.

Serge Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique), will be directed by graphic novelist Joann Sfar.

"Sfar's cutting-edge creativity and unique take on the character of Serge Gainsbourg is what really drew us to this project," the head of Universal Pictures International Studio, Christian Grass, told Variety magazine.

This will mark the 37-year-old storyteller's first film. Sfar's graphic novels tend to reference his Jewish heritage with works such as Le chat du rabbin (The Rabbi's Cat) and Les olives noires (Black Olives) — a series about a Jewish child in Palestine at the time of Jesus.

The movie will chronicle Gainsbourg from his youth growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris and follow his life as a hard-living showman. Gainsbourg was the child of Jewish refugees who fled to France in 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution.

Eric Elmosnino has been tapped to play the chanteur who was as famous for his glamorous lovers, which included the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, as for his songs. French model Laetitia Casta will play Bardot while Mylene Jampanoi will portray his final partner, Bambou (real name Caroline von Paulus). There's no word yet on who will play Birkin.

He scandalized the music world many times with his audacious recordings including one in which Birkin sighed erotically — Je t'aime ... moi non plus — and another duet with his daughter Charlotte about incest. Charlotte is now a well-known actress in France.

In his later years, Gainsbourg would often appear on television shows or on stage drunk.

Former French president Francois Mitterand described Gainsbourg, who died in 1991 at age 62 of a heart attack, as a man who had "elevated the song to the level of art."

The film will begin shooting for 13 weeks in January in Paris and is expected to unspool in French cinemas in 2010.