Directed by Danny Boyle - the Academy Award-winning director of “Trainspotting” and “Slumdog Millionaire” – the biopic is based on a 2017 memoir by guitarist Steve Jones entitled “Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol.”
The project stars Toby Wallace as Jones, Anson Boon as Johnny Rotten, Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious, Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, and Christian Lees as Glen Matlock, with Thomas Brodie-Sangster (The Queen’s Gambit) portraying manager Malcolm McLaren and Talulah Riley (Westworld) playing punk design icon Vivienne Westwood.
"Imagine breaking into the world of 'The Crown' and 'Downton Abbey' with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent," says Boyle. "This is the moment that British society and culture changed forever. It is the detonation point for British street culture...where ordinary young people had the stage and vented their fury and their fashion…and everyone had to watch and listen…and everyone feared them or followed them. The SEX PISTOLS.
“At its center was a young charming illiterate kleptomaniac — a hero for the times — Steve Jones, who became in his own words, the 94th greatest guitarist of all time. This is how he got there."
Also set to air on Disney+ in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, “Pistol” made headlines last year when members of the Sex Pistols battled in a London High Court over the rights to use the band’s music in the series.
Jones and Cook sued Rotten after the singer refused to grant permission for the group’s songs to be included in the series, with a judge ruling in their favor based on the terms of a 1998 band agreement stating that decisions regarding licensing requests could be determined on a “majority rules basis”; a lawyer for Cook and Jones said both the band’s original bassist, Matlock, and the estate of his replacement, Vicious (who died in 1979), supported their position.
Inspired by New York bands the Ramones and the New York Dolls, among others, the Sex Pistols formed in London in 1975 and helped to propel the UK punk scene through a series of four singles and one studio album, 1977’s “Never Mind The Bollocks…Here’s The Sex Pistols”, before disbanding just three months after its release.
See also:
Johnny Rotten comments on legal battle over Sex Pistols song rights
Sex Pistols members win legal battle against Johnny Rotten over song rights
Sex Pistols members battle over song rights for TV biopic
Sex Pistols to release 40th anniversary edition of album debut
Search The Sex Pistols at hennemusic
