Craig Brewer signs on to produce Katy Perry concert film

Yes, he's still writing a new "Tarzan" movie for Warner Bros. But Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer also is busy with a celebrity who favors whipped cream-squirting bras over loincloths -- pop singer Katy Perry.

Because of his work on such musically rich films as "Hustle & Flow" and "Footloose," Brewer, 40, has been enlisted by Paramount to be an executive producer on the 3-D concert documentary "Katy Perry: Part of Me," set for release July 5.

"People are wrong to dismiss her as cotton candy," Brewer said of Perry, whose 2010 album Teenage Dream spawned five No. 1 singles on the Billboard pop charts, including "California Gurls" -- a song that achieved instant notoriety thanks to a music video that depicted a sort of perverse Candy Land in which Perry portrayed a Wonder Woman-esque warrior who shot whipped cream from peppermint-striped guns attached to her top.

The costume is typical of Perry, whose outrageous and humorous fashion sense matches the playful and sometimes controversial pop-princess provocation of such hit singles as "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" and "I Kissed a Girl."

"I think people are going to be surprised how much she's in control of her life, how creative she is, that she's a songwriter who takes experiences from her own life and puts them into her lyrics," said Brewer, part of a small army of producers on the film. "It's really interesting to see how the movie and her life mirror the songs she puts out to the public."

The directors of "Katy Perry: Part of Me" are Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth (collectively known as "The Magical Elves"), who were among the producers of the 3-D concert documentary "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," a hit for Paramount last year. With a mix of backstage cinema vrit drama and onstage performance footage culled from Perry's 2011 "California Dreams" tour, "Part of Me" is intended to replicate the Bieber film's success. Imagine Entertainment, the company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, is amo! ng Param ount's partners on the project.

The movie is being crafted from some 300 hours of footage. As an executive producer who also is a veteran writer-director, Brewer is providing some counsel, and helping the directors balance the creative and practical demands of a Paramount project.

Meanwhile, Brewer is continuing to work on a script for a proposed "Tarzan" movie that Warner Bros. hopes can become a sequel-spawning "tentpole" franchise for the studio, just as the Johnny Weissmuller films were for MGM in the 1930s.

He said the recent box-office failure of Disney's "John Carter," based on a series of books by "Tarzan" creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, was not relevant to the Warner Bros. project. "Tarzan is on a whole different level of global awareness."