Sex Pistols movie to hit the big screen

Following the recent, high-profile Queen and Mötley Crüe biopics, Bohemian Rhapsody and The Dirt, a movie about The Sex Pistols is set to hit the big screen.

Author: Scott ColothanPublished 25th Mar 2019

It’s been reported the UK firm Starlight Films has been working on the embryonic stages of movie for the past 18 months and casting will begin soon.

The as-yet-untitled film will apparently actually focus on the band’s late manager Malcolm McLaren, who died in 2010, and how he helped instigate the UK punk movement alongside his girlfriend, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

McClaren and Westwood supplied punk fashions from their Chelsea boutique shop SEX and, under McClaren’s management, the Sex Pistols swiftly became a cultural phenomenon.

Although McClaren and Westwood will form the crux of the film, it will also chronicle the Sex Pistol’s rapid rise and fall over just two-a-half-years from 1975 to 1978.

In an interview with The Daily Star, filmmaker Ayesha Plunkett said of the Sex Pistols film: “We were impressed by the box office takings for Bohemian Rhapsody. It only goes to show the public has an appetite for these films.”

Film critic Brian Viner commented: “A Sex Pistols biopic, by definition, won’t have the same broad commercial appeal as Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, not to mention the new Danny Boyle film Yesterday, inspired by the music of The Beatles.

“But everything depends on how good it is. Whether you loved or hated the Sex Pistols, or were pretty indifferent to them as I was, they certainly represented a moment in history.

“If the film really captures the social and cultural significance of the punk movement, with humour and a lightness of touch, then it could tap into the powerful nostalgia market.”

Late Sex Pistols star Sid Vicious was previously played by Gary Oldman in the 1986 biopic 'Sid and Nancy'.