Almost two years after it was announced that Don Cheadle would direct a film about Miles Davis, taking the lead role himself, the actor has confirmed plans for a "gangster" take on the jazz legend's story.

"It's not a cradle to grave story," Cheadle told the Wall Street Journal (via the Playlist). "It's not a biopic, per se. It's a gangster pic. It's a movie Miles Davis would have wanted to star in."

It's an intriguing notion: taking the facts of Davis's life and remixing them. "Without throwing history away, we're trying to shuffle it and make it more cubist," Cheadle said. The movie centres on 1979, a time when Davis had retired from playing music. He was exhausted and strung out. But who knows what else Davis was up to?

Cheadle's intentions for a Miles Davis movie stand in stark contrast with the conventional biopic planned by George Tillman Jr, who directed the film Notorious. He is basing his screenplay on a book by Davis's son. "If the world is ready to have two Miles Davis movies, fantastic," Cheadle said. "I don't think anyone's going to be making the kind of movie we're making." In addition to an original score by Herbie Hancock, the Davis estate has also agreed to license "all the music" for the film.

Cheadle's project is still stuck in development, however. "This is the kind of movie the business 10 years ago may have leapt at," he said. "But now, you don't really see movies like this. We have a studio offer and we're trying to back into a budget number, like we always have to do, without gutting the piece."

Miles Davis died in 1991, aged 65.