Universal have optioned the rights for a film charting the life of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s frontman, Anthony Kiedis. More here:
It looks like we might be getting another high-profile music biopic to add to the increasingly large collection that has formed over the last few years. The huge commercial success of 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody continues to influence studio thinking as just last year we saw a Whitney Houston biopic, an Elvis one, a Weird Al Yankovic biopic and Maestro, a tale focused on the life of Leonard Bernstein.
There’s more to come too: we’ve got biopics of Bob Marley, Madonna and Amy Winehouse all in different states of development, and now you can add The Red Hot Chili Peppers to the mix – or one of them at least. According to Deadline, Universal has optioned the rights to Anthony Kiedis’ memoir, Scar Tissue, the ‘warts and all’ story of his life that was published in 2004. It’s a candid book that explores ‘a deeply unconventional father-and-son story set against a substance-fuelled 1970s and ’80s LA punk scene and examines, without judgment, how Kiedis’ experiences shaped the music eventually embraced by millions.’
Like many of the other names above, Kiedis has certainly clung on to the rollercoaster of fame and fortune through its dizzying peaks and its lowest troughs, so the story at least promises to be interesting. Whilst it hasn’t been confirmed, we’d imagine that the producers have acquired the rights to the band’s music too. That said, last time we checked, the band were signed to Warner Bros, which could make for an interesting negotiation.
There’s no other news on this front, but it’s clear that Universal will be hoping to emulate the huge success of 2015’s Straight Outta Compton which told a dramatised story of NWA – another hugely popular music act from the same era. That film earned over $200m from a $30m production budget, and we can imagine that the studio will be hoping for a similar success here. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
