They played songs that set a new land speed record and remained together through 18 years of drugs, dysfunction and failed record sales. Now the Ramones, traditionally dubbed “the godfathers of punk”, are to receive the big-screen Hollywood treatment in a biopic entitled I Slept With Joey Ramone.
Fox Searchlight is in negotiations to board the bio-pic of the seminal New York punk band, based on a memoir titled “I Slept With Joey Ramone” written by Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh and longtime punk writer and Ramones chronicler Legs McNeil.
This is not the first time the Ramones have been featured in a movie. There was the teen rebel comedy Rock n’ Roll High School back in 1979, a soon to be remake of that film produced by Howard Stern and the 2004 acclaimed documentary End of the Century, which covered the group’s influence and detailed its internal strife, from Dee Dee’s drug addiction to the long and bitter feud between Joey and Johnny Ramone.
As with other influential bands, a Ramones biopic would face hurdles en route to the screen. A take on the life of Nirvana and frontman Kurt Cobain has been in the works for years. Fans are excited for the release of the new memoir considering it is written by the same author who penned the punk history book Please Kill Me, but I’m not sure how fans will feel about the Ramones being portrayed in a movie by everyone else but the Ramones.
