Daniel Radcliffe has signed on to play Grammy-award winning musician ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic in Roku’s first original film – Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Yankovic himself has co-written the script with Eric Appel, who will direct. The film will be available to stream exclusively on The Roku Channel.
The biopic will reportedly hold nothing back in exploring every facet of Yankovic’s life, from his meteoric rise to fame with early hits like ‘Eat It’ and ‘Like A Surgeon’ to his torrid celebrity love affairs and famously depraved lifestyle.
Yankovic is the biggest-selling comedy recording artist of all time and a five-time Grammy winner. His 2014 release ‘Mandatory Fun’ was the first comedy album in history to debut at number one on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
“When my last movie UHF came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork. I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule,” said Yankovic in a statement. “And I am absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film. I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for.”
Colin Davis, Roku’s Head of Original Scripted Programming, added:
“There clearly aren’t enough biopic movies about famous musicians and we were excited to shine a light on the incredibly true, unexaggerated story of Weird Al. This is sincerely the ultimate combination of talent, creativity, and friends, coming together to make something genuinely funny and we could not be prouder to call this film a Roku Original.”
Getting Radcliffe to portray Yankovic in your first original film is a pretty good coup for Roku, who also seem to understand the tongue-in-cheek fun of Yankovic’s comedy if Davis’ statement is anything to go by. Fans will be crossing their fingers that the film itself retains a sense of irreverence and originality to match Yankovic’s unique career.
Production on the film is expected to begin in Los Angeles early next month.
#Peace.Love.WeirdAlYankovic
