Steps to writing/developing a feature based on a living person
I've been toying with an idea for a feature based on, or inspired by, the story of someone who is still alive and well today. This person is a former pro athlete who left Europe to play in one of the major US leagues, had a long and successful career, retired in the 90s and is in their 80s today. They are not a household name, but if you are a fan of one of the teams they played on, you probably know who they are.
I understand that this isn't the easiest story in the world to get made, but I'm trying to figure out possible pathways to doing so anyways, since I really believe this could be something good. My basic thinking is that this could either be 1) a direct, authorised biopic using real events, names and places or 2) an "inspired by" kind of story that changes the events and names and places, probably depending on whether this person would be interested in giving the story their blessing or not. Ideally, they would, and I could interview them and everything, but if they weren't, that could still leave the "inspired by" route open.
In either case, I'm trying to understand what could be a good starting point for developing something like this. Probably writing like a one-pager outlining the general structure of the story and a little bit of why tell this story and why I should be the one to do it, but after that, should I try to get in touch with this person directly and see if they were interested in collaborating? Or should I try to find a producer first and then approach the person as a tandem? Or does the fact that it's based on real events prevent a producer from getting involved before I have secured some rights to the story?
FWIW, I am a working writer here in my home country (Northern Europe); I don't claim to have a lot of pull or anything, but I am also not a complete nobody. I'm not represented by an agent or a manager at this time, since that isn't really a thing here.