Last year’s Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Michael Shannon, is set to star as the male lead in “The Runaways,” a biopic about the all-girls teenage band from the 1970s.
According to EW, Shannon will portray the infamous manager/producer Kim Fowley in the film which already has Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, two of the five members of The Runaways.
Fowley founded and managed the young band throughout their career but his presence later came under question with accusations by the band of verbal, emotional and sexual abuse. That’s putting it nicely. Fowley was a reptilian careerist if there ever was one and was the embodiment of L.A. scum in the 1970s punk scene, so it’ll give Shannon plenty to work with. If he’s even half as electric as he was in his scene-stealing turns of “Revolutionary Road,” he’s going to be equally dynamic and magnetic here.
Production on the biopic is set to begin in the summer with music video director Floria Sigismondi at the helm.
