Randall Miller is about to make a biopic about legendary CBGB club owner Hilly Kristal and he’s got Alan Rickman lined up for the lead.
Miller was working on another biopic – that of Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson with Aaron Eckhart in the lead entitled simply The Drummer, but because production of that has been pushed back till autumn, he’s decided to go ahead with this movie first.
Rickman, who previously worked with the director on Bottle Shock, is set to play Kristal, the man who launched CBGB in New York in the late 1970s, intending it as a venue for country, bluegrass and blues music. But it soon became apparent that those acts were quite tough to find and so he opened it to local talent – a move which helped the emerging punk scene and launched the careers of The Ramones and Patti Smith.
Shooting should begin in June. Meanwhile Rickman will next be seen in the remake of Gambit alongside Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz.
