Penn Tapped for Harvey Milk Biopic

Sean Penn will play gay 1970s politician Harvey Milk in director Gus Van Sant's long-gestating biopic of the first openly gay prominent elected official. Matt Damon is tentatively attached to play Milk's assassin, Dan White, who shot the San Francisco city supervisor along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978. After serving five years of a seven-year sentence, White committed suicide in 1985. Michael London and his Groundswell Prods. are financing the movie. Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks are producing from a script by Dustin Lance Black (Big Love). The filmmakers are now in talks with a ''leading specialty division,'' according to Hollywood Reporter, to finalize a deal on the as-yet untitled project. Shooting could start by the end of this year.