While the world is scrambling for toilet paper, it feels like there will never be a shortage of movies. Even though Hollywood production has come to a standstill in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus, new movies are continuing to debut, even if not in cinemas. Stardust, the David Bowie biopic starring regency Emma. hunk Johnny Flynn, was supposed to have its premiere at the Tribeca Festival Festival. Instead, it's premiering online via a private link, but the first clip is available to watch now.
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David Bowie, the enigmatic singer-songwriter and musician behind Ziggy Stardust, passed away in 2016. Stardust, directed and co-written by Gabriel Range, takes us back to 1971, when a 24-year-old Bowie arrives in America in hopes of expanding his career, only to be met with an industry that isn't quite ready for him.
In the clip, Flynn as Bowie is having a frank discussion with Ron Oberman (Marc Maron), a publicist at Mercury Records. The record company has doubts about Bowie and his album, but Oberman not only thinks otherwise, but believes Bowie has the potential "to be the biggest goddam star in America.”
"Seriously man this is a great record," he continues in the clip. "It’s a great record. It’s just no one knows how to sell you in America."
Range is hoping this biopic will serve as an authentic look at Bowie's life, lifting the curtain a little bit to see past the artist's heavily curated personas.
“I set out to make a film about what makes someone become an artist; what actually drives them to make their art. That someone is David Bowie, a man we’re used to thinking about as the star he became, or as one of his alter egos: Ziggy Stardust; Aladdin Zane; The Thin White Duke," he said in a statement, per Variety. "Someone I only ever saw at a great distance, behind a mask; a godlike, alien presence. Even in his perfectly choreographed death, he didn’t seem like a regular human being.”
Maron most recently appeared as Wayne Cosgrove in Spenser Confidential, and Flynn has three movies still ahead of him, including The Dig alongside Lily James, Ralph Fiennes, Carey Mulligan.