Led Zeppelin film in the works
It will feature the surviving members
Last updated 12th Aug 2021
An official Led Zeppelin documentary film has been announced featuring input from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.
The yet-to-be-titled film is currently in post-production and is being made by team behind the ambitious three-part documentary series about roots music in the 1920s, American Epic, which was released to great acclaim in 2017.
The Led Zeppelin film is directed by Emmy-nominated English filmmaker Bernard MacMahon and is being made as part of the legendary band's extended 50th anniversary celebrations, which kicked off last year.
Told exclusively from the band’s perspective and “in their own words”, the film will boast brand new interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones together with rare archive interviews with the late-great John Bonham.
It is the only time the band have participated in a documentary in fifty years making the film the first of its kind; the Led Zeppelin story told through the words of the men that lived it, with no outside voices or conjecture.
Billed as the "definitive telling of the birth of the world’s biggest-selling rock band”, it will focus on Led Zeppelin’s embryonic years charting their separate journeys through the music scene of the sixties, their meeting and formation in 1968 and culminating in 1970 when ‘Led Zeppelin II’ knocked The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ from the top spot of the US album chart.
Alongside the interviews, it will feature previously unseen film footage and photographs, state-of-the-art audio transfers of the band’s music and the music of a number of artists who directly influenced Led Zeppelin’s sound.
Jimmy Page says: “When I saw everything Bernard (MacMahon) had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is ‘American Epic,’ I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”
Explaining why he contributed to the film, Robert Plant added: “Seeing Will Shade, and so many other important early American musicians, brought to life on the big screen in ‘American Epic’ inspired me to contribute to a very interesting and exciting story.”
John Paul Jones commented: “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring this story to life.”
A release date for the film hasn’t been announced. CAA is handling U.S. rights to the documentary, and Altitude is selling the film internationally.
Also on the team making the film is writer and producer Allison McGourty, editor Dan Gitlin and sound supervisor Nicholas Bergh.
McGourty, MacMahon, Duke Erikson and Ged Doherty are producing the film, with Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub on executive producer duties.