A first look image of actor Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in the upcoming film Stardust has been revealed.
36-year-old Flynn is set to star as the music icon in the movie, which is set in the early ’70s and sees Bowie embarking on his first road trip to the US and creating his famed alter ego Ziggy Stardust.
Bowie’s son Duncan Jones said the film does not have his family’s blessing. “If you want to see a biopic without his music or the family’s blessing, that’s up to the audience,” Jones wrote on a Twitter post.
“I’m saying that as it stands, this movie won’t have any of dad’s music in it, and I can’t imagine that changing.”
Im not saying this movie is not happening. I honestly wouldn’t know.
Im saying that as it stands, this movie won’t have any of dads music in it, & I can’t imagine that changing. If you want to see a biopic without his music or the families blessing, thats up to the audience.— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 31, 2019
In response to the statement, the producers said the project is “not a biopic”, but “an origins story” and “a moment in time film”, likening it to Control for Joy Division and Nowhere Boy for John Lennon.
“It is a moment in time film at a turning point in David’s life, and is not reliant on Bowie’s music,” the producers told the Entertainment Weekly.
“The film was written as an ‘origins story’ about the beginning of David’s journey as he invented his Ziggy Stardust character, and focuses on the character study of the artist, as opposed to a hits driven ‘music’ biopic.”
Producer Paul Van Carter confirmed that Stardust will not use any of Bowie’s songs. “We always knew that we weren’t going to.”
Stardust is directed by Gabriel Range (I Am Slave) and written by Christopher Bell (Netflix’s The Last Czars). Flynn will portray the English musician alongside Marc Maron (GLOW), who plays Bowie’s publicist Ron Oberman, and Jena Malone (The Hunger Games) who plays Bowie’s wife Angie.
