The Janis Joplin film, "Piece of My Heart," got a new director recently, but singer Melissa Etheridge is still out of the picture. Gary Fleder of "Kiss the Girls" fame is picking up the twice-dropped directorial torch, and has signed on to direct the biopic, budgeted at $35 million to $40 million.

Etheridge's agent at CAA says that even though there have been new developments in the project, the singer is not currently attached to it. Etheridge had been previously cast as the legendary blues singer who died at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose.

Her life partner, Julie Cypher, is still on board as the movie's producer, in conjunction with Lakeshore Entertainment's Tom Rosenberg. The musician was previously thought to be a lock for the pic, in light of her confessed love of Joplin's music, as well as Cypher's involvement in the "Piece of My Heart" script, which she helped co-write.

The film, which is titled after the Big Brother & the Holding Company song of

the same name, is scheduled to start shooting sometime next year, with casting decisions expected to be finalized in the next two months.