Kiss Biopic Coming in 2021?
Bohemian Rhapsody was a huge hit (budget: $52 million, worldwide box office: $903 million), Rocketman was a huge hit (budget: $40 million, worldwide box office: $195 million), and The Dirt was a huge hit. So, naturally, Hollywood is now planning a plethora of new biopics about various music acts, ’cause there’s gold in them there hills.
Unsurprisingly, given both their popularity and the size of Gene Simmons’ ego, one such biopic-in-the-works is about Kiss. The band’s manager, Doc McGhee, tells Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon that producer Mark Canton (300, Piranha 3D, a lot of bad Sylvester Stallone movies) is on board, and that they’re hoping to have the movie out in the summer of 2021:
“Hopefully in the next week we’ll have a company behind it, and we’ll start finishing the script, and hopefully by the time we end we’ll have a movie finished for July of next year.”
Not-so-coincidentally, Kiss are scheduled to play their allegedly-final show in New York City on Saturday, July 17, 2021.
Having said that, I don’t think Doc had his movie producer hat on when he made this suggestion. For one thing, keep in mind that Kiss are by no means box office gold: their last movie, 1999’s Detroit Rock City, was a massive flop (budget: $34 million, worldwide box office: $4.2 million). For another thing, I can’t imagine any studio in their right mind would wanna release a Kiss movie the same weekend as the band’s last show, ’cause it would sandwich the flick right in-between the next Spider-Man movie and Mission: Impossible 7, both of which are all but guaranteed to be massive hits. And Indiana Jones 5 is currently scheduled for release on July 9, 2021, so it’s not even like the nostalgic geriatric market will be underserved that month (Harrison Ford will turn 79 that same week).
Meanwhile, that October will see the release Elvis Presley biopic from director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge), starring Tom Hanks as Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, and they’re not gonna wanna compete with that, either. The movie would have less competition in early 2021, but for it to come out at that time it would need to go into production right about now.
So I think it’s much more realistic to expect the Kiss movie in 2022. Assuming that works out, Kiss can announce their big comeback tour for 2023. Whoopee.
You can check out the interview with Doc McGhee below. Kiss’ never-ending farewell tour is underway right now. Get dates and tickets here.
[via Classic Rock]
