Members of the Grateful Dead in 1985, from left, back row, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart from left, front row, Brent Mydland and Bob Weir.īear in mind that just because a film is in development doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to get made. There’s plenty of material to draw from, going back to the group’s humble beginning as a Palo Alto jug band to its incarnation as the Grateful Dead in the LSD-soaked counterculture of the ’60s and its late career success as the top grossing live act in the world. Simpson: American Crime Story,” have been hired to pen the script. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the acclaimed screenwriters of “The People v. Just for fun, what actors would you cast for the other band members, including Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the Dead’s original keyboardist? (I should note that Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann are continuing the Grateful Dead’s pioneering improvisational rock as Dead & Company, featuring John Mayer on lead guitar.)Īpple, which is developing the film, has reportedly secured the rights to the band’s music, a catalog of classics that would remind even non-Deadheads of the timeless rock and Americana songs the band wrote and recorded, particularly on its two 1970 masterworks, “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty.” He’s also directed a prestigious list of rock documentaries - 1978’s “The Last Waltz,” 2011’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” and “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story” in 2019.Īnd it bodes well for the project that the Dead’s surviving bandmates, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, have given it their blessing, signing on as executive producers along with one of Garcia’s daughters, Trixie Garcia, and the band’s manager, Bernie Cahill. As an executive producer of the exhaustive, four-hour Grateful Dead documentary “Long Strange Trip,” the 79-year-old Oscar winner has more than a working knowledge of the band’s history.
Grateful dead movie movie#
If a Grateful Dead movie is going to be made, it’s reassuring that Scorsese, one of the great directors of our time (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “The King of Comedy,” “Goodfellas”), will be making it. The post got some 5,400 comments and nearly 222,000 likes. On Instagram, he shared the news with his 3.3 million followers along with praying hands and a skull emoji. Jonah Hill is set to play Jerry Garcia in Martin Scorsese’s Grateful Dead biopic.Īnother source close to the band says it would be deeply surprising if the filmmakers could capture even a 10th of Garcia’s magnetic personality.ĭespite that rather daunting challenge, the 37-year-old Hill, an Oscar winner for his supporting role in the Scorsese-directed “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is obviously looking forward to the possibility of playing the charismatic guitarist, singer and songwriter.
“I’m hopeful but not optimistic that Scorsese can capture some Garcia’s essence.” “I love Scorsese and I love how he shoots and uses music (both in his docs and story films), but I’m still very afraid of what he’ll do to the Grateful Dead story,” Blair Jackson, author of “Garcia: An American Life,” tells me in a direct message. Since then, he’s become a kind of sainted figure, so you can be sure that any movie about him will be the subject of intense discussion and debate among the band’s legions of devoted Deadheads. Garcia died of a heart attack at age 53 in a San Geronimo Valley drug treatment center in 1995, tragically ending the Grateful Dead’s 40-year career. The news has sparked quite a buzz in the Grateful Dead world with excitement over the prospect of the famously iconoclastic band coming to the big screen mixed with some healthy skepticism about the ability of Hollywood to pull off a movie about the Dead and Garcia with any degree of authenticity. For those of you who haven’t heard, Martin Scorsese has announced that he’s set to produce and direct a biopic about the Grateful Dead with Jonah Hill playing Jerry Garcia, the band’s iconic pater familias.
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