John Belushi may be getting a (second) second life on the big screen.

“The Pursuit of Happyness” screenwriter Steven Conrad (right) and “The Hangover” director-producer Todd Phillips are developing a biographical film about the late comedian’s life. Warner Bros. recently acquired the rights from Belushi’s estate.

Conrad will script the project and Phillips will produce, though he has not yet committed to directing it. Alexandra Milchan and Bonnie Timmerman are also producing.

In a typically difficult process that saw the rights deal come together, then fall apart, then come back together again, the project would be the latest attempt at a full-scale biopic about the “Saturday Night Live” cast member and film star who died of a drug overdose in 1982 at age 33.

Belushi’s life was famously detailed in Bob Woodward’s 1985 biography, “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi.” That book is not part of the rights deal, unsurprisingly, since it was widely criticized by Belushi’s family and comedy peers when it was published. When “Wired” was subsequently turned into a 1989 feature starring Michael Chiklis, Belushi’s friends and family publicly boycotted the film, which then OD’d at the box office.

Belushi’s widow, Judith, published her own oral history, “Belushi: A Biography,” in 2005. She will be an executive producer on the project, as Judith Belushi Pisano (she’s since remarried).

After directing the raucous comedies “Road Trip,” “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch,” Todd Phillips made “The Hangover,” which became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time ($480 million worldwide) last summer. For his encore, he reteams with “Hangover” co-star and fellow ShoWest honoree Zach Galifianakis for the November Warner Bros. release “Due Date,” which also stars Robert Downey Jr. THR: Would you say your movies have a common theme? Phillips: They're about holding on to your youth or putting off responsibility as long as possible. There's a point in your life where you have to choose responsibility, and the characters are putting off that choice.