Metallica fans are hoping the band does not receive a biopic as they believe it would “sugarcoat” the story.
A post to the r/Metallica subreddit saw one user ask how others would feel if the band were given the same treatment as Queen, Elton John and Bob Dylan. Biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story were given as examples in the post. Few were convinced by the need for a Metallica biopic, though some say they could be convinced so long as the story was not condensed into the standard format. One user wrote: “Eh, maybe. If it wasn’t sugarcoated and the story wasn’t compressed in to a two hour movie.”
Another disagreed with the need for a Metallica adaptatin, adding: “Most biopics are the same. Unknown artist/band, rise, drugs/depression, fall, gets it sorted, all good. Especially with Metallica, who have been transparently sharing their story for years, I see something like this as superfluous. If one comes along, please only cover a specific section. Because biopics usually don’t fully capture the artist’s story, which in Metallica’s case is too interesting to ignore [logically, they only have 2.5 hours].”
Some have suggested the biopic, if there were to be one, not follow in the footsteps of Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. They wrote: “Bohemian Rhapsody seems like it’s more about Freddie Mercury than Queen as a whole. So I’m not sure how you could really do a biopic about a whole band.
“The Beatles one is being split into 4 movies so they can cover all fourmembers which is also fucking stupid.” Another user has described any future Metallica biopic as a “hot mess”. The band themselves are not convinced a biopic is in their best interests, either, but Lars Ulrich has gone on record with who he would want to portray him.
He said: “Yeah, well, they’d need a five-foot-seven, small, balding… I mean, we sort of joke about this all the time. We use to have kind of the standard answer back in the day, just because you’d get asked that every three months in interviews.
“James Spader would play me, the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz would play Hetfield, and we’d joke about how Carlos Santana would play Kirk [Hammett].
“But the biopic thing, I think that’s more of a cautionary tale, which kind of falls in under the whole thing with autobiographies. I’m not sold on the idea.”
Though a biopic may not be wanted by some members of the band, fans believe they have found a solution. A “series” rather than a movie may fare better, according to fans who want a biopic to follow the same storytelling style as The Crown. One user wrote: “This is what I’m thinking too. Something akin to The Crown, where you have different actors playing the characters over multiple seasons.”
