Where Do Music Biopics Go After 'A Complete Unknown'?
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15% off your first set of sheets at BolanBranch.com with code CUMULUS. Exclusions apply. See site for details. I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. Now, we've talked several times over the years about the rise of the music biopic and what that means for music, what that means for movies. It remains quite a fertile subject. And I have my frequent partner in that exact discussion,

Andy Green back to talk about it once again. What brings us here today is a complete unknown. And of course, we ran a cover story on A Complete Unknown starring Timothee Chalamet. And we also had James Mangold on this podcast to talk about the making of this movie, which is a partial Bob Dylan biopic. It's Bob Dylan from 61 to 65. You only get one shot

at these movies like per decade. - It's a bit longer than that, I'd say. - Well, see, if this movie had been a complete failure, how soon before you pick up the pieces and try to make a different Bob Dylan biopic? - It's gonna be like 20 years or something, 'cause "I'm Not There" was almost 20 years ago. I know it's a very different kind of movie, but. - You get one shot and then you have to let it lay fallow for quite some time. This biopic was successful artistically and commercially. It got great reviews.

It got Oscar buzz. It didn't win at the Golden Globes, but it got a bunch of nominations. It's doing well at the box office, at least on the scale that's expected. It's not doing Deadpool-Wolverine numbers, but it's doing well. Yeah, it's been very successful. I'd imagine they're very pleased with it. I mean, it was sort of a long shot proposition before they pulled in a huge movie star.

And once Timothy became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, it was pretty much destined to be successful. The critics were pretty fond of it, which was surprising to me a bit because I didn't love it. You didn't love it in part because you are a hardcore Dylan fan. I think that I'm Not There is the movie for hardcore Dylan fans. This is the movie for very casual fans or non-fans or older people that recall the 60s and want to see it again.

It's not meant for passionate Bob Dylan fans by any means. Well, I think one of the things that's interesting about the reception to this movie is even when I was talking to the cast and crew for the cover story, and as I saw the movie and learned the liberties it takes factually, I assumed that the hardcore fans would be more offended by those liberties. I'll give you an example. They took the famous...

slash infamous Judas moment that happened in England in 1966 and stuck that onto the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. I almost fell out of my seat when that happened. Not that I was personally offended, but I knew it was audacious and I really did expect that

the hardcore fans to freak out about it. But other than present company excluded, it didn't seem to bother anyone. I think most rock fans presume that a Hollywood biopic of a rock star is going to be full of shit. Life's don't unfold in three act fashions and they're going to change stuff. And it's not surprising at this point. The,

response from the hardcore Dylan fans was actually really positive. A couple things did that. I think that James Mangold has music nerd credibility due to Walk the Line, which was very successful and very good, even though it turns out that was also not a super factually accurate movie, to say the least.

And I think that helped. I think he's just kind of has a gravitas. Timothy sings live in the movie, which is crucial. There've been biopics. I think of Ray. I even think of premium rhapsody where they're lip syncing. Yeah. Despite Jamie Foxx being a very good Ray Charles imitator, he does not sing in that movie. Yeah. In the Selena movie, Jennifer Lopez is lip syncing. Jennifer Lopez lip sync. That's stunning to me. I, in any context that is very surprising. I cannot believe it.

I'm just hearing this now for the first time. This is amazing. I'm sorry to burst your bubble there. My entire conception of her is at the window. Yes, continue. In the Queen movie, Rami Malek, he's lip syncing the entire time. Because they found an outside imitator does the vocals, right? For the most part. Some old Freddie vocals and this Canadian guy who sings just like Freddie Mercury. In biopics, as soon as they start to sing, to me, the entire illusion crumbles.

A Complete Unknown, I thought the best parts were when Timothy was singing. And he didn't sound a ton like Dylan. There's not much nasal there or anything. But yet somehow he conveyed the spirit of it, which to me is often the worst part of biopics. The best part was watching him sing. Yes, and that's actually what made Walk the Line work, the actual performances. Even though you can't really sound exactly like Johnny Cash,

And especially Reese Witherspoon didn't sound much like Carter Cash at all, but she sounded very charming. And yet you got to a version of what I was going to say is that, so first of all, Mangold, and then second of all, I think,

Timothy's performance and his evident sincerity as a Bob Dylan disciple, which he certainly conveyed to me. He really did remind me of a classic young person getting into Dylan for the first time where he's obsessed with outtakes and telling you about YouTube channels, the bootlegs. It was really impressive on that level. He went deep. I talked to the guitar teacher who he studied with

for years to learn guitar pretty much from scratch. I talked to the vocal teacher. He even had a harmonica guy. He did go deep, and you can see the results. In the movie, when he's playing "Fixing to Die" in the studio, you see all the hard work that he put in. He's playing guitar. He's playing harmonica. He's singing.

And it's very impressive and it makes the movie work. Whereas when Michael Douglas was playing Liberace at the piano, it was like different hands or something around the piano. It was like CGI. They did something crazy. What movie is that? There's the HBO movie behind the candelabra. Oh, yeah.

I completely missed this. Yes, it was an unrecognizable Michael Douglas as Labrador. I completely missed this. 94% of Rotten Tomatoes. How did I miss that? It's a fine movie, but when he's playing the piano, it's not him. You could tell. And it ruins the illusion. Steven Soderbergh. 12 years ago, I completely missed this. It was a blind spot for me. It's a quality film. Okay, Andy recommends Behind the Candelabra. We'll do an episode on that sometime soon. You're right.

You can sense that kind of thing, especially if you're a music fan. A lot of the public may not think they care, but they maybe can viscerally feel it. Yeah, I think it works. And same with Monica Barbaro as John Baez. That's tough to sing like John Baez. And she does it. And it sells it to me. I really thought that Edward Norton was spectacular as Pete Seeger. I'd seen Pete Seeger live a few times. I'd talked to him. It was almost creepy to watch him become Pete Seeger. I think that both Monica and Timothy did something...

a little different where they were sort of creating a version of the characters. Whereas Edward was more channeling Pete Seeger, where it was kind of creepy almost. It was incredible. It floored me with every mannerism, vocal tick, everything. I talked to Edward before I saw the movie, after, and he talked a lot about, you know, he's friends with Bruce Springsteen. He talked a lot about

sort of just Bruce has sort of a, you know, like the Seeger-esque-ness of Bruce. Obviously, you know, specifically he had a big project along those lines. But I really did think that he brought Bruce, that he was doing, it was like Pete Seeger with 10% Bruce. The same way that Bradley Cooper,

Not exactly the same way, but it turned out, which makes total, total sense, especially if you've seen Eddie Vedder up close, that like he basically based a lot of his Star is Born character on Eddie Vedder. I see that so clearly with his speaking voice. It's a brilliant acting thing because it solves a lot of your problems. Even the character has very little to do with Eddie Vedder. He modeled a lot of it. Like how Johnny Depp is being Keith Richards in Pirates of the Caribbean to some degree. Exactly. It's more like that.

You take a character who's not your character, but pull it in a little bit. So he definitely did a little Bruce. What's cool about this movie or what's smart about this movie is it goes straight for the Dylan jugular. I know some of the hardcore fans, the more delusional ones were like, oh my God, we don't need to hear this story again about the village in the 60s and Bob comes to town and Woody Guthrie. We've heard it a million times. Why don't they do a movie about his Christian period? And the thing is, it's sort of like how...

John Peters famously didn't want Superman's cape or him to fly in a Superman movie. Like, no, if you're doing a Superman movie, it has to fly and there has to be a cape. And if you're doing a Bob Dylan movie, you probably need him in Greenwich Village in the 60s. Yeah, because you are introducing him to people that have no clue who he is. So you have to start with the beginning of the story or it's kind of ridiculous if you're trying to make a mass market movie and not some old arthouse niche movie.

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If you're telling Bob Dylan's story to a new audience who has not heard of him, you need to start at the very beginning of the story. If you're doing something about him in the 80s or a gospel period or whatever, that's a small art house movie. That's not a mainstream movie. Another thing that's interesting about this movie, and we'll broaden it out soon, another thing that's interesting about A Complete Unknown and The Reception is just a few years ago when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in October of 2016,

Almost all of the reaction online was mockery and derision of this boomer that he's just this boomer's gonna boomer. Of course, they would pick some irrelevant musician and just complete lack of appreciation.

For a while, I felt like the only thing people knew about Bob Dylan was one quote from Joni Mitchell where she said that he's a liar and a thief or whatever. Where, of course, there's 10 quotes from her where she says the opposite. She was just in an anti-Bob mode that day. Basically, it's like, well, Joni doesn't like him. It's like, no, Joni loves him, actually, if you look at the totality of their interactions. But that day, she didn't love him.

There has been a sort of millennial shift on some of these acts. So there's been an online fandom over the past nine years. An online fandom has developed in both millennials and even Gen Z for some unlikely acts, including Steely Dan, including Bob Dylan. And so that was already bubbling under the surface that there were these unexpected Zoomer fans of Bob Dylan already.

I think there's a long period in which there's a big boomer backlash, but we're past that now because now it's not just like go away boomer. It's become like part of history. It's so long ago now that it's a genuine history. I think as Gen Z takes some of the cultural reigns from millennials who are now considered ancient by Gen Z, the irony is that the resentment that millennials had towards boomers

was much more quickly than anyone could have anticipated, immediately transformed into Gen Z having that antipathy towards millennial culture. Gen Z is much more mad about annoying millennials talking about which Harry Potter house they're in than about Bob Dylan. They don't have that visceral reaction to this stuff. So I think that's part of what's happening.

Not even their parents' stuff that they were sick of hearing as kids. It's like their grandparents' music that they've never heard of before. People hate their parents and love their grandparents at certain ages. So I think that's part of it. But yeah, it's just... So what's crazy to me, the other thing that's crazy to me is the total lack of...

this is some boomer bullshit backlash to this movie. Like you barely heard that at all. And the fact, I think to the point where it may have obscured the extent to which the audience for this movie is, you know, it definitely attracted young people through the hottest movie star in the world, but there were tons of older people at this movie. I mean, let's face it. The movie starts so long in the past. He arrives in New York the week Eisenhower is leaving office.

That's how far back we're going in history now. It's a historical movie. It's like being mad at Master and Commander for being set in 1805. Like, fuck 1805. Once it dips this far into history, it just seems kind of cool. You're glad to see the past recreated that way. Yes, I fully agree.

So more broadly, and I talked to Timothy about the idea that he's now played this role at the beginning. And there is this weird thing where he's young enough, even though he's actually much older than the Bobby plays in the movie, in part because of the five-year delay in making this movie, which helped him prepare way more than anyone has ever possibly been able to prepare for a biopic before because of the delay. But it also means he's a little older. He's almost 30. So where would he be in actual Bob Dylan chronology? Yeah.

1971. Yeah. Yeah. So he should be almost ready to make New Morning pretty soon. But it does give him the opportunity if he wants, he could return to this role multiple times in his life if he wanted to. Yeah. If they want to do a movie about blood in the tracks, they have like four years now.

Mango couldn't have Joaquin Phoenix even if he wanted to appear in this movie as Johnny Cash because he's too old to play that Johnny Cash and he was very Contemptuous of the idea that this was had any connection to walk the line that there was like a cinematic universe even though I'm sorry It is funny that the same guy puts Johnny Cash in his movie again. It's yeah if 20 years later He's playing a younger Johnny Cash. It would be insane

Yeah, exactly. It would also be funny if Timmy now owns the role of Bob Dylan. And if like, you know, I guess Cameron Crowe is probably making a Joni Mitchell biopic soon. If there needs to be a Bob Dylan, if he can be the Bob Dylan, I think that'd be awesome. I think he should always be Bob Dylan in any movie. It would be fantastic. And in the Beatles movie they're making soon, he comes in in 64 and gets him stoned.

It would be incredible. It's a quick cameo. He should declare that anytime there's Bob Dylan in any movie, he has to be that Bob Dylan. He should be in the Beatles movies for like three minutes. Like just show up. But he would do it if they asked. It'd be a very fun cameo. If they didn't announce that in advance and he just walks into the room and smokes them up, it would be one of the greatest Easter egg like cameos of all time.

He was intrigued by the idea of being able to return to the role. He definitely didn't reject it out of hand. I think it's also sort of like, imagine you spend five years preparing for something and then you're told you have no further purpose for this. So what's the 70s movie you'd want to see? I think a Blood on the Tracks movie is actually pretty cool. They'll need to bring in Sarah. If you're doing Blood on the Tracks, you have to have a major Sarah Lowndes character.

You could do Blood on the Tracks into the Christian era, you know? If you do any of Raleigh and Thunder, you bring Monica back as Joan Baia. Pete Seeger, I don't know if there's as much call for that. Well, in the Springsteen biopic, it could be a cameo. That's right. Ed Norton in old age makeup? Yeah. We'll get to the Springsteen biopic, because that's not the right era. It would be very confusing if Pete Seeger showed up during the recording of Nebraska. These are movies. He just comes by and says...

I like what you're doing. Keep it up. Thanks, Pete. Maybe someday I'll repay the favor. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. Sure. Every time we think

we've hit peak biopic, we're wildly wrong, which is why we're returning to this. And people may think this was the peak. This is not the peak. There's a lot more. I think a huge moment, because back in the day, it would be every four or five years, there'd be one. You can go back to the Buddy Holly story with Gary Buse in the 70s, which won Oscars, the Doors in the 90s. But the Queen movie grossed a billion dollars, won a Best Actor Oscar.

They performed at the Oscars and their ticket sales doubled. Their catalog sales went through the roof. They were bigger in the States than they've almost ever been when their lead singer is dead as a touring act.

uh because of this movie i'm sure i'm repeating myself from prior episodes in this but the real thing was the movie wasn't even good it's an awful movie it's terrible but it really connected with people it's an entertaining bad movie i'll give it that sure it's ridiculous yeah and then when elton john did rocket man he timed it to come out when his farewell tour was going on sale and it really boosted him

When Motley Crue did their shitty Netflix thing, it got enough momentum where they reunited and played stadiums. The thing about the fact that Queen had this messy production by a director who's now canceled and it generally isn't, it's a ridiculous movie. You have Mike Myers looking at the camera and being like, this will never be in Wayne's world. Cheap jokes.

wildly historically inaccurate, and yet it was successful, it comes down to, and this is a thing I've said before, what they're always looking for is things that are IP that is not execution dependent, doesn't even have to be good. And it was proven again last year because there was this Bob Marley biopic titled

that I couldn't even watch it was so bad. And I love Bob Marley, but it was way worse than the Queen Bob Big. And that did really well. That did really well. And if you're working at the Bob Marley estate, your goal is to introduce Bob Marley to younger fans who can buy the t-shirts, who can fuse money in the estate. It's a brilliant marketing move to just raise brand awareness of the IP. Yeah.

And to take another step back, one thing people have to understand is there is now big money invested in

keeping these legacy acts alive. In some cases, they've sold the rights of their catalogs to these big companies that then try to monetize them. One of the prime ways to do it, talking to Alex Van Halen, he was saying the same thing. He hasn't sold it, but he knows that one of the ways to monetize your legacy is you make a biopic. It's now a playbook. The Beach Boys, they sold their catalog name, image, likeness to Irving Azoff.

And then he made a big documentary that was on Disney Plus. But that big play, if you own the Ramones or you own the Doors or whatever, the way to really get a huge return on your investment is a biopic. There is a trend for cases when the artists are alive of deep involvement. One of the reasons that Bohemian Rhapsody was ridiculous is because of the deep involvement of the members who...

were determined to make sure every member had the same number of shots and made sure there wasn't anything bad and rewrote history constantly. Dylan was very involved with A Complete Unknown and who knows whether the movie would have been better or worse without his involvement. The people involved swear it was better for his involvement. - It can get tricky because now Madonna's trying to do her own biopic and she wants to direct it and everything and that could be a catastrophe.

Mariah Carey is on record of liking our joke on this podcast that Madonna should have just played herself with CGI. So if Robbie Williams can be played by a CGI monkey in a movie, someone is going to attempt to play themselves in a biopic with CGI. Someone is going to do it. But that movie you just referenced is going to gross about two pennies in the States. Yes. Here's an exception. I wanted to get to this. Here is an exception to the biopic rule. You cannot sell...

A biopic of someone Americans have never heard of, two Americans, even if there's a clever CGI monkey gimmick. I can't believe this movie was given a wide release in the States. He has zero famous songs in the States. He has no touring bass in the States. He has no name recognition in the States. He's a purely European superstar. Yeah.

He's almost nobody here. Even a traditional biopic would have been insane here. But one where he's a CGI ape? Are they on crack to put this in theaters here? The movie Better Man, is it a better man or better man? I don't know. It's one of the two. Who cares? The movie, that movie apparently is very good. But unfortunately, the overall reaction is who cares? It's...

rather baffling that it got a wide release in the States. I'm astounded. What's coming in the next couple of years are these four Beatles movies. Yes. And we'll get to that in a second. But I do want to say, I think the same people who approved that wide theater release are the same people who like decided that there should be a Craven, the Hunter and Madame Web movie. It's like these people, it's the same sort of thinking, like, I don't know, like people

like it really is very much the craven the hunter of biopics people like these movies they like movies with superheroes they like movies with musicians this is a musician not a monkey Jordan number six by Clint Eastwood it's a solid solid movie it was put in like three theaters

Which it could have done well, but they're out of their minds. There's a long history of trying to break Robbie Williams in America and failing. And this is just the final nail in that coffin. Whether monkey or human, you cannot sell. Rob, there is no version of Robbie Williams that Americans will accept. Yeah, when Take That reunited about 10 years ago, they did like 13 nights at Wembley Stadium all sold out.

They couldn't have played like Santos Party House here in New York or BB King's Blues Club. Nobody cares. Can you imagine how much Take That resent One Direction's success in the United States? They're like, how are they different than us? What's the first British boy band that actually crossed the Atlantic, right? It's possible if Take That had come of age while the internet was functional, they...

then maybe they would have been popular here because that was the trick. But also, I'm sorry, Robbie Williams is no Harry Styles. Sorry, Robbie. You seem very charming, but you're not even a zen. That song Angels he has in the UK, it's as big as freaking Wonderwall. I don't think it's ever played in America once anywhere. Yeah. And my favorite is the band Madness that America just our house in England. It's like 75 number one hits and the whole country knows by heart. Different countries are different countries. So

No CGI. What would be the equivalent? What should be another, like, where madness are all CGI bunnies or something? But the budget is $500 million and they try to release it. It would make more sense because at least people know our house in this country. There's one fucking song they know. There's zero Robbie Williams songs that they know. Kasabian, the CGI adventure. Leaving aside that it's apparently a good movie, I want to respect good movies. Sure. It's just...

I think they thought they could sell it as just a good movie that happens to have a CGI Robin Williams in it, but you can't do that. It's not how it works. Ridiculous.

So the biggest thing on the horizon and perhaps the biggest challenge is the fact that Sam Mendes is making and has cast these four different Beatles movies, which they haven't quite explained. Each one, each member gets their own movie, but whether that's sort of a rational, I think it's going to be chronological where it's in quarter chunks of their career, a

It goes from 56 until 70. And each one will have a different person as the central figure. Has Paul Mescal been confirmed as Paul McCartney? I don't believe so, but not denied either. It seems to be true. So the rumored casting is Joseph Quinn is supposedly the choice to play George Harrison. Paul Mescal is apparently playing Paul McCartney.

Barry Kogan will play Ringo. Harris Dickinson was apparently the front-runner to play John Lennon. So that's the deal. Okay, so that makes sort of more sense if it's chronological.

broken up but I don't understand how you focus on each member when you do the white album period it's like George's story where their background people and the dead did and they have huge roles but the focus is more on George that's interesting and you know what these movies unless they're terrible I bet they actually will do extraordinarily well I think they'll do well but if the first one hits and is a disaster and there's three more coming they're kind of screwed

It is weird. No offense to Mr. Star, who we obviously respect tremendously. On a commercial level, it's weird to do a Ringo movie and expect it to do as well as the other one. It's not going to be marketed as a Ringo movie. It would just be that in this one, there's a lot more focus on Ringo. Even that, it seems like it would be better to just do four Beatles movies and not frame them this way. Maybe they'll let go of this idea because I don't understand it.

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I'm trying to think of the sequence I would do if I was in charge. The first movie is just all about Ringo's sickly childhood. It takes place entirely in the tuberculosis ward with a few flash forwards to the future. I think the best George one is towards the end. You probably start with John.

You know what? You could actually start with Ringo joining the band. Weirdly, that's actually a trick is you actually make the Ringo one the most commercial because that's the Beatlemania one. And I guess you can skip past like all of the prehistory boring like Quarrymen stuff. It's late 62 and Ringo joins or mid 62. What's sort of like, you know, just to use my only frame of reference for anything, which in the first X-Men movie, you meet the...

By the same director who did Bohemian Rhapsody, by the way. In the first X-Men movie, the X-Men already exist, but you see them through the eyes of Wolverine as he joins the X-Men. But when Ringo joined, they were pretty successful. I mean, they recorded one single, basically. I guess if you want to start at 1962 and the first movie is Beatlemania...

you would want to, if Ringo joining this group, do you do all the Pete Best drama stuff and just don't even get into it? - It's actually kind of a cool way to start the movie is, see now I'm actually picturing this. You actually start, you fake people out and you start with this band playing,

But you see, it's Rory and the Hurricanes. It's Ringo's band. You slowly reveal that there's this other band that are playing Germany. And you see it through. They cross paths. There's one night where he did sit in. Yes. And they played better. And then...

Do you get into the whole drama that they have to push out the drummer? Yeah, and then you see it that way. Yeah, they go to record Love Me Do. It's a disaster, and George hates Pete, and then they're forced to fire him. They went in to record Love Me Do at the first session, and George Martin said, your drummer sucks.

Then the irony is Ringo joins, but he doesn't play like the first time that he doesn't play on either. Cause they have this other guy here, Andy white. And then Neil Haspinall, he knocks up Mona best. It's really uncomfortable. He's a row manager who's having a child with a mother, their fire drummer.

Oh yeah, they should definitely get into that. That's insane. There's an excellent, probably the best Beatles biography ever written. By Mark Lewis. Yes. It's incredible. Yeah. And that goes into granular detail. Their road manager impregnated Pete Best's mother, which has got to be one of the best. They should get deep into that. And he manages them until his death in the early 2000s. There's all this bad blood with Pete Best.

And he's the father of his half-brother. - Yes, where is Pete Best's half-brother whose dad is Neil Aspinall? Hit us up, we wanna know what's up with you. - He's on interviews, he gives tours of the Casbah Club and everything. - This is the back room where Neil Aspinall impregnated my mother. - It's true, it's what happened. - This is a tour of like, this is the attic where-- - Where I was conceived.

Because the basement of his house is where they played all those shows. Here's where Pete practiced drums and then up here is where the road manager knocked up my mother who's much older than he was and conceived me. And I exist in this world, Bob Lee. If you did a Mona Best biopic of just her story, it'd be amazing. That's a different kind of movie. Just like over in the corner, the Beatles are playing. You get all the music exactly right, but you only hear it in tiny glimpses. Yeah. I think this would be more interesting. Yeah.

But anyway, those are coming. The plan is to release them all in 2027. What? Yes. They can't do four in a year. That was... Every three months there's a new movie? Ten months ago they announced they were going to release all four in 2027. I do not know if that's really going to... I can't... I think they're probably going to pull back from that. I can't think in the history of Hollywood they've ever done anything like that. So now because actually Sam Mendes said, what did he say? So this can no longer be true because...

In an interview with Variety's Stagecraft podcast, Mendes said he's going to be busy making those four movies until mid-2028. So there's no way they all come out in 2027.

That's the kind of thing that a studio wants. And the director soon says that's not possible. It's literally impossible. So, you know, maybe to come out in 2027, if they must. Maybe six months apart. But when they film those Hunger Games movies back to back or whatever, or even Wicked, it's a full year apart. Well, it would be competing against itself almost. If they did release all four of them in the same year, I do think that people would be like, because the Beatles, there's always that undercurrent of Beatles backlash. Yeah.

So I think that risks backlash. You're talking like January 1st, then April 1st, the next one. That's too soon. There's a lot of other stuff coming. Another big one that's filming right now is very interesting and daring.

different kind of approach and this is this movie deliver me from nowhere starring Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen and it tells the story while extending to the rest of his life flashbacks to his childhood and everything but it tells the story of how Bruce Springsteen made Nebraska which is very daring because if you're looking at an album Bruce made around that period you would want to go two years later this is not the most famous album

Of course, part of it is that Borneo SA is so contiguous with Nebraska, it overlaps. So there's actually scenes of them in the studio recording Borneo SA and trying to record the Electric Nebraska. And by the way, if you had told me 20 years ago that there would be a real Hollywood movie that features the attempted making of Electric Nebraska, I would have been really surprised. It's so freaking bizarre. I can't even comprehend it still.

On a storytelling level, I completely understand this. I think they didn't necessarily go for the most commercial thing, which I totally admire, and it might be the better movie for it. Basically, the idea is a rock star hits this point of crisis, and how he gets out of it is this album.

It's going to be much, much more factually accurate than a complete unknown. I think they're filming, you know, Bruce was playing at this, at the Pony, even as he was recording Nebraska around that time, he would make these surprise appearances famously at the Stone Pony with this band called Cats on a Smooth Surface. All that is going to be in the movie, I think possibly even with accurate set lists. That's how they're going super nerdy on this one. It's easier to be factual if you zoom in super, super tight to a few months.

When you're cramming five years into two hours, you have to start screwing with things.

Interestingly, John Landau, Bruce's manager, told you specifically that they weren't involved, but they approved of it. I have to wonder whether that's changed due to the fact that Bruce has been on the set every single day. When you're the guy the movie's about and you're on the set every single day, it feels like whether you're credited as a producer or not, you're a producer of this movie, and I bet he gets his credit. I would think so. He's been there every single day. If he's just hanging out, that's hilarious and good for him, but I feel like...

I feel like you'd give him a producer credit. I would think so. And it's pretty well cast. I mean, you have Jeremy Strong from Succession playing John Landau. He doesn't look a damn thing like him, which Landau was joking about to me. But he's an incredible actor.

Yeah, it's... Are they going to give him enough to do, is my question. I'm curious, but the movie I've been thinking about for years with Bruce is the Micah Pell Bruce Landau movie. That's a great movie. I told James Mangold years ago...

In an interview about Logan, the Wolverine movie, we were talking about music biopics and he's like, well, what do you... He was asking me about Bruce and I said the same thing. I said, I can see this. And he actually... I know he then did go and look up Michael Pell's book. So he may be a bit bummed that another Bruce movie is being made. It's the perfect story. Him and Michael Pell. It has three acts. It has so much drama and emotion to it. It's cinematic. We've talked about this so many times that I can almost picture it, but...

This is very interesting. I admire the boldness of it. I think it opens the door for new and interesting types of music movies. So I hope it does really well. Yeah. I'm still very surprised by it. I see the pictures of him on set as Bruce Springsteen and it just looks like the bear. It's just, I can't see him as Bruce Springsteen. The problem is they both wear undershirts. It's a very similar type of guy. Style-wise, I need to hear him sing before I can be convinced at all. Yeah, it's amazing. But...

One thing we're talking about is it is weird to see the classic rock canon disputed as it is being sort of reconstituted on film. I think it's great. No one's bigger fans of Springsteen, The Beatles, Bob Dylan than us. I'm a fan of a lot of other kinds of music too. And I think there's a lot of room for...

There's so many legendary black artists who should get biopics and would be great movies. Sly Stone is getting a documentary that I hear is great, but that could be an amazing role for someone. A big one we didn't mention is the Michael Jackson one that's, I think, done filming. Oh, yeah. With his nephew playing him.

That just feels like such a can of worms and it's authorized by the estate and everything, right? 1000%. That is a weird one given the accusations. But the Broadway musical has been a hit. Yeah. It'll be, I imagine it'll be successful, but the discourse is going to be agonizing. That's a tough one. I wouldn't want to take that gig. Even if you believe that he's innocent of all accusations, you can't ignore the fact that they happen. I don't know the time period. They might end it with bad or something.

That would be very, that would be so smart. Right. Just solve the problem in two seconds. Right. You know, I was joking about the fact that, you know, Timmy learned to play guitar and harmonica and sing like Bob Dylan. Yeah.

It would be a lot harder if someone's like, we're making a Prince biopic. Play everything. And, you know, we're doing it 100% authentically. So you have to learn how to play drums, keyboards, bass, guitar, but not just play them, play them to a virtuosic level and then also sing amazingly and also dance. So we just need that person. If the Prince estate is as difficult with the biopic as they were with their documentary, yeah.

it's never going to happen. That's true. The same thing with Stevie Wonder. You're not going to find someone who can train up to be Stevie Wonder. If...

If the Bruce movie and the Beatles movies are hits, the floodgates are going to open to everything. I'll tell you the one I really want. If I was a billionaire, I would just because I'd want to see it truly. I really would love to. And it would make like five dollars, but it could win Best Picture. A biopic of Charles Mingus. He was an absolute stone cold genius over the past decade as I've run my horizons, slipped into the top 50.

five of my favorite artists, but he was he was this genius who is also like who was brilliant on every level also super weird he famously trained his cat to use a toilet, but he was monstrously abusive to the people in his bands like cursing them out on stage even breaking their jaw breaking their teeth if you fucked up a note he might break your face he struggled and

You know, this is an American giant who also was a very complicated and sometimes bad person. It's a tremendous role for someone, an absolute Oscar role for someone. But I recognize the commercial challenges to a big budget jazz movie. If it was someone's passion project, like the Leonard Bernstein movie, it could get made. What's the lesson of the Bernstein movie? Like, it's not worth the energy. And eventually, you know, eventually there'll be like a Jay-Z movie,

Well, I'll tell you, you know, this is a dark one, but when are they going to try to make the fictional take on Diddy? The can of worms. That's a, yeah. If they change the name, it's pretty damn easy. What's funny is that all these are happening, but...

But I've been reading about Keith Moon and Janis Joplin biopics for over 20 years. They don't happen. It was supposed to be Mike Myers as Keith Moon. He's as old as Keith Moon's grandfather now. I think the entire idea, it's time has passed. I just don't see it. I just don't think the idea was that it was going to be kind of charming and funny. I just don't think people see it that way anymore. Well, it's a pretty sad story. He OD'd in those pills they gave him to get off alcohol.

And do you know what movie he saw the night that he died at the premiere? The Buddy Holly story.

to go back to biopics. He saw the Buddy Holly biopic and he's like, got it. Don't die in a plane crash. One thing for sure, I'm not going to get on a plane right now. I'm not going to die tonight. It's unfortunate that one of our greatest artists, Andre 3000, starred in an unwatchable Jimi Hendrix biopic. They should redo that. That should be a movie. Hendrix should be reintroduced to people in that way. Once you blow your chance at it, it is very hard to return to it. But some low-budget shitty one is different. With Janis Joplin, it's a no-brainer.

Like small town Texas girl becomes Janis Joplin. Yeah. Well, who was the last person? It was supposed to be pink for a while. Oh, so the latest, uh, the latest casting, there is actually a latest actress, uh,

attached right now to Janis Joplin. It is Shailene Woodley. I wrote articles in 2004 for random notes and changes in Rolling Stone about Janis Joplin movies that didn't happen. It would actually be a great chart of all the people who were attached to her. Shirley Temple. It's like that joke that Rick Wakeman told about his father. Yeah.

My father worked as a Elvis impersonator. It was it was pretty tough back then there wasn't much call for that in 1948 There's some that are cursed like Janis Joplin Janis Joplin is obviously and moon It's been something Roger Daltrey that he's been trying to produce for 30 years Yeah, yeah, I mean I think some of the biggest are yes Stevie Wonder Prince Janis Joplin I mean stones

That's interesting. The stones, why does it feel like that's harder to do than anything to do? But you make it a, you make it Brian Jones. You make it the Mick and Keith and Brian and how in the sixties, how the power switched. The problem, you can't do that while Mick and Keith are alive. They don't want that movie. That's the best story. They don't want that movie. Right. So I think that's part of the problem. And, and, uh,

Yeah, I don't think that one gets made while they're alive. I think Mick is very, very savvy. And he's so aware of this stuff, he would never approve anyone to play himself. If you asked him about it, he would just say it's a stupid idea. The Stones Inc. still prints money through concerts. They don't need this. They don't need it. And unlike the Beatles, they're somehow still touring. So that's not an issue.

Fleetwood Mac. Rumor has it that there's a big documentary being made about them. Yes. But one of the hugest white whales is Fleetwood Mac. Because there's already been multiple fictional versions that have been hits about it. Right, because it's so obvious. And the story is so obvious of what you tell for that. And that just made to be a movie. It comes down to the fact that you'd need their approval. Yeah.

You would need both Stevie and Lindsay to somehow approve this. If this documentary is real, which it probably is, I think they're both talking for it. It's like the Eagles documentary. They talked to Don Felder, you know? How did they agree on a version of the story? It's literally impossible. In...

The same way that decisions are made in Journey about stuff with Steve Perry, you have different lawyers that go to them and then they sign off. But Steve Perry was never sleeping with any of the other members of Journey, so it's much more personal. They hate each other. There's hating each other and then there's the next level of you used to sleep together. Sure, sure, sure. They spoke for a few minutes at a memorial service for Christine a couple years ago.

Yeah, sure. And that means they can, they can agree to a fictionalized version of their relationship. I think it's, I think it's literally impossible and has to wait till they're unfortunately, and hopefully they'll be with us for a very long time. But yes, that's a huge one. Are we forgetting any other huge white wells here? Like David Bowie?

David Bowie, Paul Bettany told me his dream role is to play David Bowie because he really looks like him and talks like him. It's too fucking bad. He's not younger unless they want to make up David Bowie's final years, which would be a cool movie. It would be a cool movie. But the obvious, the obvious movie is he's a hippie in London. He's struggling to find himself. He's making horrible music and he

Ziggy Stardust. Right. We talked about this on Slack and we basically sketched it. This is the podcast where we give away multi-million dollar ideas. The

The ideal scenario is you see him struggling and what you do is you sort of almost exaggerate the badness of the music he's making during his hippie... No, but that Gnome song. You don't need to exaggerate that shit. It's horrible. Start with him playing this gnome shit and also just, you know, he has no riz. He's just kind of... It seems like nothing. And then you slowly transform him and then that's the meat of the story. You get him up there with Ziggy Starrs. And there's a version where you track it to the point where he loses himself in it. No, I think...

The movie ends with the final Ziggy show. The movie I want to see is where he's just like,

living on cocaine and milk and the and the kabbalah and just like fully lapsing into mystical insanity that movie about station to station would be fucking sick and there could be a Bruce cameo by Jeremy Allen White when the Born to Run tour is playing the Roxy he meets Roy Bitton and then he pulls him on the album weirdly there was a great Tina Turner biopic made before all of this well and then did you see the interview that Tina gave to Oprah like a year before she died it was

It was fascinating. She goes, Oprah, I finally watched the movie. I've never seen it. And I was crying because I couldn't believe how they changed everything. She's like, if I had only known, I would have prevented that movie from coming out. I want to go back and delete it. I think a Diana Ross movie would be cool and a corrective to Dreamgirls, which she feels has slandered her.

Oh, that's cool. I think a Ronettes movie would be amazing. If you turn Ronnie Spector's book into a movie. It would be a weird tonal shift, like from opening up for the Beatles with, of course, the Sam Mendes Beatles playing the Beatles. She wasn't allowed to be on that tour. Right. It's still blocked her from doing the tour. Yeah. I think that would be a pretty harrowing, true crime-ish thing.

thing, you know, that's pretty depressing. But yeah. Well, you could make a triumph when she leaves Phil and when she works with like Eddie Money. There's all sorts of girl group stories to be told, like the Shirelles or something. The Shangri-Las is an awesome story.

I think Patti Smith's life is made for a biopic. They turn kids into a movie. Oh my God. I have the perfect casting for that. You want to, speaking of like literally multimillion dollar ideas, Kristen Stewart should play Patti Smith. She already played Joan Jett. So it's kind of weird to be the both. Give us a fuck. She'd be better. She's both seventies punk women. It's not a universe. She doesn't have to be a peer next to herself. Yeah. If they make just kids into a movie, which they obviously should, that could work.

Who do you want to play, Patti Smith? Sydney Sweeney? The studio's like, we just want to make a few changes. Actually, like, Chaka Khan's life would be a really cool movie. Sure, but they're not going to make a Chaka Khan movie. I'm making a Chaka Khan movie. Can you stop me? I'm not going to stop you, but you have to get into the Mount Rushmore figures to get a green light for these things. I feel like we're missing, there's actually so many huge names that just somehow don't get in this conversation. I'll give you an example. Marvin Gaye.

Where's the Marvin Gaye movie? That's an absolutely cinematic and amazing story. That's one dark ending. It's a dark ending, but you have so many things. The making of what's going on is a movie in itself. In the entire 60s period at Motown. And then the divorce and the drugs and everything. That's a movie. That's one where I think you do the cradle to the grave biopic. Yeah.

You can't tell Marvin Gaye's entire life in two hours. Then you make 10 Marvin Gaye movies. If it's just the 80s, it's the darkest movie of all time. I'm sure there's a Quincy Jones movie. How do you, with a life like that, how do you pick apart? That's really hard. There's so many eras that are very different. It's fun because you get to, you know, if, you know, if you do it as sort of like jobs, you know,

Where you have him with Frank Sinatra and then cut, you know. With Leslie Gore. Yeah, with Leslie Gore and then with Michael Jackson. For just like three days of his life. Yeah, I think actually that's an interesting way of doing that. And then it's really fun because you get to cast a Frank Sinatra, you get to cast a Michael Jackson. That's kind of cool. I guess you don't make a Quincy Jones movie because it's not IP. Yeah, at least now. You know what's a good movie?

really good movie as the mamas and the papas. That's what Michelle Phillips has been trying to make for years. She wants her granddaughter, which is William Baldwin's kid with China Phillips, to play her. And she's been trying to make that happen for a long time. Because Mama Cass was a fascinating human being. It would be an amazing movie. You can't go too far down the timeline or it gets a little dark. But if you stick it to the 60s,

In fact, what I think you make Mama cast the lead character, because I think she's the most compelling person and you just get into all her... I've read biographies of her, like her heartbreak and her... Everything is... Sure. I think the issue they'll face is that Michelle is the only one alive and she'll want it to be about her. Yeah. See...

I think the conclusion is this. It's actually weirdly infinite. It's weirdly infinite. And I think that even like the Mamas and the Papas and Marvin Gaye are IP in the sense that they're always trying to make like, you know, like a Mighty Mouse movie or whatever. Because even something with a slight remembrance. What just occurred to me was they announced that Jonah Hill was going to be Jerry Garcia and that Pete Davidson would be Joey Ramona. And now both appear to be not happening. Yeah.

Well, that's the other thing is these things get attached. I once tweeted about this. The Jerry Garcia thing is one of the most ridiculous Hollywood things ever. It started in the most idiotic way possible, which is that Jonah Hill happened to notice that he sort of looked like Jerry Garcia. Oh, God. He wasn't a particular dead fan. Yeah.

On the other hand, Marius Scorsese knows everything about The Grateful Dead and would love to make a movie like that. So then it sort of got loosely attached. They had been talking about Leo playing Frank Sinatra for years. And with the Ramones, they announced Pete Davidson was going to be Joey Ramone. But Joey's brother and Johnny's widow have been at war for decades now. They own the estate but don't speak to each other. And it's just they couldn't make it happen.

A Ramones movie could be really cool. You know, there could be a Clash movie. The more we talk about this, I actually think this could keep going basically forever and that by the time it's done, every major act in every genre will have a movie or a Hulu series. I told you this on Slack, but it's becoming like the Western. Yeah.

It's a whole genre now about a lost period of history that we just recreate as fables. Yeah, you were saying that classic rock has hit...

You were talking more specifically about classic rock, but it'll also extend to classic R&B and everything. It's stuff from the 60s and 70s that's now so far away that the same way some of the surviving people from the Old West would see their stories turned into legends and bastardized. Or they would tour themselves in the late 19th century, that there would be huge crowds that come to see these old cowboys do a fake version of what they used to do for real. Well, I can't see any parallels.

For some of these acts. That's totally alien to this whole scenario. I don't know why you even bring that up. I'm now convinced. I hope we do. We return to this subject again because it's infinite. We could probably just make a whole weekly podcast about biopics. Yes. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard. More free ideas for everyone. Thank you very much for joining me. Sure. Of course. It was fun.

And that's our show. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us five stars and a nice review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because that's always appreciated. But as always, thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

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