Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd legend Johnny Rotten is none too pleased with director Danny Boyle’s upcoming biopic series about the Sex Pistols’ short reign, Pistol, due out next year. Last week, Rotten called the imminent TV retelling a “disgrace” that disrespects his history.
Is the musician really that averse to watching his early story unfold onscreen?
“I think that’s the most disrespectful shit I’ve ever had to endure,” the 65-year-old musician told The Sunday Times in an interview that emerged April 24. “I mean, they went to the point to hire an actor to play me but what’s the actor working on? Certainly not my character. It can’t go anywhere else [but court].” [via NME]
Further, the Sex Pistols icon, whose real name is John Lydon, added that he and Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) aren’t strangers — the two reportedly met during the 2021 London Olympics’ opening ceremony. And that seemed to add insult to injury for the musician. (A spokesperson for Pistol told the NME that “direct contact was declined” by Rotten after Boyle reached out about the series.)
“Sorry you think you can do this,” Rotten seemed to address Boyle directly, “like, walk all over me — it isn’t going to happen. Not without a huge, enormous fucking fight. I’m Johnny, you know, and when you interfere with my business you’re going to get the bitter end of my business as a result. It’s a disgrace.”
FX revealed the first on-set images from the series last month, with actors Anson Boon (Rotten), Toby Wallace (Steve Jones), Louis Partridge (Sid Vicious), Jacob Slater (Paul Cook) and Christian Lees (Glen Matlock) portraying the Pistols’ in their prime. The six-episode TV series finds its basis in Jones’ 2018 memoir, Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol, as Variety reported.
“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,” Boyle previously said of Pistol in a press statement. “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.”
Pistol is expected to premiere on FX in 2022.
