In a new interview with The Rock Experience With Mike Brunn, KISS‘s longtime manager Doc McGhee spoke about the band’s upcoming biopic “Shout It Out Loud”. The film, which landed at Netflix, will be directed by Joachim Rønning, the Norwegian filmmaker whose credits include “Kon-Tiki”, “Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil” and “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”. The script is written by Ole Sanders.
“We’re just starting it now,” Doc said. “We’ve already sold it. [The deal is] already done… So that’s moving along. And that’ll come in ’24.”
Back in September 2021, Doc said that the “Shout It Out Loud” script was “completely done”. He added: “Mark Canton, who is a very, very powerful producer and production company who has the TV series ‘Power’ and ‘Ghost’ and all that stuff, and he was a president of Sony and all that, he’s done 300 films — a really, really great guy — his team and Universal Music and ourselves have partnered up with Joachim Rønning, who is a very sought-after director that did things like ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’, and ‘Kon-Tiki’ was up for an Academy Award. And the script is about the first four years of KISS. Basically, it’s before they were famous — it was up to Cadillac High, that kind of thing,” referring to the October 1975 concert KISS played in a high school gym in Cadillac, Michigan. “And I think it’s a very interesting look at the formation of KISS, the mindset of how that came about, the social pressure that everybody was in in the ’60s and ’70s that brought something like KISS to the forefront, that it could actually happen. So it’s a very interesting, and I think it’s a well-written movie. And our partners right now is Netflix. It’ll be a theatrical release, then Netflix.”
Earlier that same year, KISS frontman Paul Stanley told Download host Kylie Olsson that the KISS biopic was “definitely happening. And that’s gonna be really interesting,” he said. “The script was really good. And we really waited until we felt comfortable.
“Look, you get once chance to do it, and I would rather not do it than do it half assed or poorly,” he explained. “Our director is the real deal. He did ‘Maleficent 2’, and he’s not some hack; he knows how to make movies. It should be great. Casting hasn’t begun yet. But that will be interesting too.”
Asked which actor he would like to play him in the movie, Stanley said: “And I will tell you this: for casting to be accurate in terms of age, we are looking at actors in their early 20s. Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot of actors in their early 20s. When people get asked these kinds of questions, they’ll say, ‘Oh, Brad Pitt,’ or this one or that one. Well, those guys are in their 50s or 60s, so you’re talking about another generation of actors. And I’m the first to say I’m not up on a lot of them. But as the casting process goes on, I’ll certainly be there and watching. It’ll be interesting to see how someone else — be it the casting people or the director — how they view who I am and who they see doing that. I think I’ll learn a lot about their perception of me by who they cast.”
“Shout It Out Loud”, which will have close cooperation from bandleaders Stanley and Gene Simmons, will be a co-production of Canton‘s Atmosphere Entertainment and Universal Music Group. The film will be produced by Canton through his Atmosphere Entertainment, Leigh Ann Burton through Opus 7, Courtney Solomon, David Blackman and Jody Gerson through Universal Music Group, McGhee through his McGee Entertainment, Rønning, and Simmons and Stanley. Atmosphere‘s Dorothy Canton and David Hopwood are the executive producers.
Earlier this month, KISS announced the final shows of its last tour — two back-to-back shows at Madison Square Garden in New York at the end of 2023. The last leg of KISS‘s 19-date North American tour will kick off in October in Texas and culminate in the MSG concerts on December 1 and December 2.
This past January, Stanley was asked by Yahoo! whether the last concert of the “End Of The Road” tour will truly mark KISS‘s final performance or if there is a chance of one-off shows or a Las Vegas residency in the future, Stanley said: “I really can’t say. But it is the last of any kind of regular shows or touring.
“It’s just time,” he explained. “And in the same way, it’s time consuming. And physically, it’s grueling to do what we do. Hell, if I could go out on stage in my jeans and a t-shirt, give us another 10, 15 years easily. But what we do is a whole different sport. I mean, we’re athletes; we’re running around on stage with 30, 40, pounds of gear, and it’s not possible to do it that much longer. So we’re not like other bands.
“So, will we do more shows or one-offs? I really have no idea,” Paul admitted. “But this is a real clear mindset that the touring days and doing those kind of shows, that’s over.”