This is very big news for fans of 1960s guitar rock glory, and really, who isn’t? Legendary Pictures has struck a suitably legendary deal to make a biopic about the immensely influential musician Jimi Hendrix. The film will be produced by Thomas Tull and directed by Paul Greengrass, who had the chance to make the film four years ago without the cooperation of Hendrix’s estate, Experience Hendrix. That would have meant a movie about the singer/songwriter/rock god/fashion icon’s life without the use of any of his groundbreaking music. Instead, the pair held off and it seems to have paid many dividends as they now have the full cooperation of the estate, which means the wind can now cry Mary the way it should.
Hendrix died tragically in 1970 at the age of 27, leaving behind only three studio albums and one live album, a small discography that has nevertheless been in heavy rotation and topped sales charts in the intervening 45 years. Not getting to use these songs would surely have spelled disaster for a film production. If you’ll recall, John Ridley made such a biopic, indie-style, last year called Jimi: All is By My Side which had no Hendrix music in it, and it was, to coin a phrase, weird.
This film, which Legendary will make at Universal, will be a big production and will benefit from the ability to include such face-melters as “Purple Haze”, “Voodoo Child”, “Foxy Lady”, and “Hey Joe”. Might even see a rendition of the mind-altering “Star-Spangled Banner” from Woodstock, a performance which, it should be noted, ended the weekend-long event on the Monday morning at 8:00am and was only seen by about 10% of the audience that had been there during its height. Surely, that’ll play a major part of any film.
No word yet as to who will play Hendrix in the film, but at one point Anthony Mackie was in talks, and could still very well be. We’ll keep you up to date on any and all movement on this very cool film project.
NOTE: Nerdist is part of Legendary Digital Media, a subsidiary of Legendary Pictures, but remains editorially independent.
