LOS ANGELES: Universal Pictures is ready to roll on a film about 1980s Euro-pop stars Milli Vanilli, whose careers imploded in a lip-synching scandal, Variety reported on February 15.

The script will be in the hands of Jeff Nathanson, who wrote Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can, the report said. Launched by German producer Frank Farian, the duo Milli Vanilli starred Frenchman Fabrice Morvan and German-American Robert Pilatus. The pair sold tens of millions of records starting in 1988 with hits such as Girl You Know It’s True and Baby, Don’t Forget My Number, before winning a Grammy in 1990 for best new artist.

But in late 1990, Farian, under pressure from the songs’ real singers, told reporters that the photogenic dancing duo were not the voices heard on their album, and that their concerts were lip-synched.

In disgrace the duo faced a class-action lawsuit in the United States over allegedly deceptive merchandise. They also were stripped of their Grammy.

Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998 at 32. Morvan tried to launch a career as a disc jockey in the US, but without much succss.