Recently, I read in Rolling Stone Magazine that Roger Daltrey was producing a biopic about his legendary fallen comrade, Keith Moon, the manaical Who drummer and outrageously eccentric offstage man. The article also mentioned that Mike Myers had been picked to play thepart of Looney Mooney.
In part I'm excited about this: As all of you know, I love the Who and I love Keith and I can't wait till seeing a movie about him. But I have two concerns
1. There had been rumors about this movie before and people had done their own fantasy casting (As Keith, people rooted for Talia Shire's son Jason Schwartzmann and Nicolas Cage as Pete Towshend(!)) Personally I don't see Myers in the role. I don't doubt he could make a good job, but he's a little bit old and overweigh for the Moon character, unless the movie was about Keith's Last Days. Myers would also have to train his butt off to drum like the Loon.
2. The casting and writing of the movie- This movie would be very complicated to recreate if the movie centered about Moon's most important moments in life. An IMDB poster summed up my concerns:
Considering what subject matter they choose to exploer. Will it be the last
years of Keith, the beginning of The Who or his career retrospevtive? It's
very expansive and covers much ground. You have The Smothers Brothers show,
where Moonie blows up his kit on live TV. The Isle Of Wight and Woodstock
festivals. The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, where The Who blow every
other band away. The idea to make, and actually film Tommy. Keith as the intr-
agul and nasty Uncle Earnie. His last night before he died, where he attended
the premiere of The Buddy Holly Story with Paul and Linda McCartney. So......
with all that saying, if they do his career retro, then casting will be pretty
tough. You'll have to cast the Smothers Bros. Jimi Hendrix , each member of
the Stones, maybe Jimmy Page, for it was Keith that told him, that Jimmy's new
band will go down like a Lead Zepplein. Then there is the Tommy cast. Oliver
Reed, Ann-Margret, Elton, Clapton, Tina Turner, Paul Nichols. Paul and Linda.
There is his breif time out in So. Cal. hanging with Harry Nilsen, Lennon
and Ringo Starr. They can't skip this bit, when Keith was next door neighbors
to Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, and a drunken Moonie would terrorize them
so much that eventually McQueen punched the loon. That would be a cool revisit-ation! And finally, the Who Are You sessions. Where it was obvious at the
time that his skills were eroding and he couldn't keep up. He had gained a lot
of weight from all the drink and drugs. ( though it's his drumming on it that highlights the song )And obviously, you have to cast Roger( he's and he is a
tad short remember?)Pete and John. So all in all you are looking at a major
task. I also think it would be a good idea to have the guy that wrote the book
on Keith help with the screenplay. You know they won't leave out the Cadillac
in the Holiday Inn swimming pool incident. A classic! I have my doubts. Not
just to be negative, but it is a large plate to fill. Maybe if they take the
time and keep it fast paced, casted and edited well it could be something.
If they leave out the above mentioned characters, they would be doing the film
injustice, for those were his most important periods in his life. Oh yeah, I
forgot about when he accidentially backed over his own chauffer. Tons of
material to tackle. I wish the project good luck. Daunting is a understatement.
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A poster suggested this movie should become a Pixar-esque animated feature (if that were to happen, it'll probably be the first movie of its kind to be rated R) and another poster pointed out to the casting of Moon's girlfriend (s)
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Thoughts?
Untitled Moon Movie EB
