Ah, the authorized, officially-sanctioned-by-everybody musician biopic: A prime chance for living artists to take a crack at shaping their legacy in the public consciousness, and for review writers evaluating the resulting film to bust out some high-Scrabble-score words like “hagiography” in the process. Now, the machine has come for Jon Bon Jovi and the band that bears his name, with Deadline reporting that Universal is moving forward with plans for an as-yet untitled Bon Jovi biopic.
On the one hand, we get it: Bon Jovi spent many years as one of the biggest rock bands on the planet, with albums like Slippery When Wet and New Jersey absolutely dominating the charts in the late ’80s and early ’90s. On the other, Jon Bon Jovi specifically has cultivated a sort of anti-mystique as one of the least deranged frontmen working in pop and rock music of that era; there’s some debauchery in the mix there, sure, but when your biggest controversies as an artist are things like “obsessive workaholic” and “keeping the fact that you’re married to your high school sweetheart on the down-low to maintain your image,” it feels like a film treatment might end up being a little light on the juicy stuff. (Especially since the project is supposedly covering the early years of the band, i.e., presumably before the drama surrounding the departure of lead guitarist Richie Sambora in 2013. Hell, you don’t even get any “Bon Jovi inexplicably shows up to talk woman off the ledge” material with that lens.)
Admittedly, there are a few weird touches here that make the project more interesting, including the fact that it’s being written by Cody Brotter, who gained Hollywood attention with a Black List script about journalist Matt Drudge, and who reportedly did a writing pass on that bizarre Killing Satoshi crypto movie that Pete Davidson and Doug Liman are making. The film is also being produced by Kevin J. Walsh and Gotham Chopra, the latter of whom set the stage for this new project by doing an authorized docuseries about the band that aired on Hulu back in 2024. And, hey, there’s always the one major benefit of going the “authorized” route for a musician biopic: Not having to listen to MIDI covers of off-brand “Living On A Prayer” knock-offs instead of the real thing.