New David Bowie film in the works featuring rare and unseen live footage

Virgin Radio

22 Nov 2021, 16:38

Emmy-winning director, Brett Morgen, has reportedly been enlisted to direct a documentary-style film about the icon, which will include some never-before-seen live footage. 

According to Variety, the US director has received blessings from the Bowie estate, who have previously been against authorising biopics of the late singer. It is thought this has been approved as the film will focus more on his live performances and real footage.

A source close to the film, quoted in the article, described it as: “Neither documentary nor biography but an immersive cinematic experience built, in part, upon thousands of hours of never before seen material."

This isn’t the director’s first time at the rodeo, either.

He was also behind the acclaimed 2015 Kurt Cobain documentary, Montage of Heck, which relied on home-video footage as well as animation and artwork to portray the story of Nirvana's lead singer. 

The director has also won two Emmy awards in 2018 for his film, Jane, which is about the British primatologist Jane Goodall and another for non-fiction/documentary directing. 

It is hoped this project will do better than Stardust, a film released earlier this year about Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona featuring Johnny Flynn, which had to be made without any of the singer’s music after the estate refused it. 

It was described as a “strained, frustrating concoction that doesn’t do its subject justice” in a two-star review by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian. 

Variety also speculates that the director is aiming for a premiere in late January at the Sundance festival, which could coincide with the sixth anniversary of the singer’s death. 

The Bowie film, which does not yet have a name, has been endorsed by the singer’s former producer, Tony Visconti, who has reportedly signed on to the project as its music producer. There are also rumours the sound team behind Freddie Mercury’s biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, are in on it too. 

This comes after the announcement that Bowie’s ‘lost’ 2001 album, Toy, would be getting an official release with re-recorded versions of some of his oldest records. The album is set to be released in January 2022.