Since having gone independent, reclaiming ownership of their back catalogue and forming their own record label and revisiting classic albums in full in while on tour, forthcoming Soundwave headliners Metallica are keeping themselves very busy.
Continuing to tour extensively, including regularly playing their 1991 self-titled album in full while whittling away at work on a new studio album, the band are set to grace cinemas as part of their new 3D movie, and while the metal legends have previously teased details about their new narrative-come-concert movie, there’s now some concrete details.
As SPIN confirms, the 3D movie now has a name and theatrical release date, with Metallica Through The Never hitting movie theatres on August 9th. As the band details on their official website, the film features concert footage shot at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena over three nights in August last year, wrapped up with a fictional narrative about a young roadie who goes on a mythical trip.
Written and directed by Predators helmsman Nimród Antal, the fictional half of the film centres around actor Dane DeHaan, best known as the lead in Chronicle and the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2, who plays “a young band crew member who is sent out on an urgent mission while the band is playing a rousing live set in front of a sold-out crowd and unexpectedly finds his world turned completely upside down,” reads an official statement.
Metallica Through The Never is also the first feature to be distributed by the rebooted production company Picturehouse, an independent film marketing and distribution company, which Cinema Blend points out, was founded in 2005 for Gus Van Sant’s Kurt Cobain channelling Last Days and closed after just three years, despite being involved with Oscar winning successes like Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose. “It’s two separate worlds — a Metallica show and a story that unfolds in a parallel universe — and at some point they intertwine.” – Lars Ulrich, Metallica
Picturehouse founder Bob Berney has reopened the company, buying the rights from Warner Bros. and reinstalled as acting CEO wit his wife Jeanne Berney serving as president. Speaking of the relaunched studio’s first picture, Berney says “Nim and the band have made a film that really captures the spirit of Metallica and their millions of loyal fans.”
“It’s an entertaining genre film with a concert inside it, a fun ride featuring an exciting young actor, Dane DeHaan,” says Berney. “It’s a very cool project to reboot Picturehouse with.”
Metallica also championed their new distributor on their website, “Like your friends in ‘Tallica, Picturehouse is truly independent, take big chances and often think outside of the box.” Drummer Lars Ulrich adding, “Metallica’s way of doing things is to jump into unexplored creative endeavours with no safety net whatsoever.” Adding:
Putting this movie together for the last couple of years has been a pretty wild ride, and we’ve definitely done our share of flying without a net! Bringing Bob and Jeanne and the new Picturehouse team in at this point provides us with a much needed level of security for the distribution of the film. Their spirit of independence and desire to work outside the box is something we can relate to in every way, and this makes them both a welcome addition and a natural fit in the Metallica family.”
The great Dane also spoke with Classic Rock recently, (as Blabbermouth points out), comparing the new Metallica movie to Led Zeppelin’s (not so) classic 1976 concert movie, The Song Remains The Same, which featured the members of the British rock legends in various hokey fantasy sequences as wizards and warriors between live footage.
“There are four members in Led Zeppelin, four members in Metallica, it’s a full-length movie, and there’s a lot in this film that does not take place onstage,” Ulrich reveals. “The major difference is that the stuff that takes place offstage in the Metallica movie does not feature any members of Metallica. It’s two separate worlds — a Metallica show and a story that unfolds in a parallel universe — and at some point they intertwine.”
It’s not the first time the metal quartet have dabbled with the movie world, famously starring in 2004 rockumentary Some Kind Of Monster, as well as releasing a string of concert DVDs and BluRays, including their latest release, Quebec Magnetic.
Significant for being the first new release on Metallica’s newly minted record label, Blackened Recordings, our Tone Deaf reviewer called Quebec Magnetic “spectacular”, writing that “whilst the head bangers may have evolved as musicians over their seemingly infinite reign at the top of the metal hierarchy, they still possess the flair that skyrocketed their popularity in earlier years.”
