Following the box office success of “Straight Outta Compton” and the Oscar victories and nominations of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Hollywood’s appetite for the rock biopic has suddenly enormously grown. In the wake of that movie, we received an Elton John biopic, an Aretha Franklin movie, a Motley Crue flick, with many more are in development, including Bob Marley and more. But sometimes you need more space to tell a story, so Danny Boyle is doing the Sex Pistols story as a mini-series. Boyle knows his music obviously (see “Trainspotting”), but let’s also not forget his last film, “Yesterday,” was all about the Beatles. “Pistol” is the story of the notorious U.K. punks the Sex Pistols and is based on the memoir “Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol” by guitarist Steve Jones.
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The series stars mostly relatively unknown young actors: Toby Wallace (“Babyteeth”) as Steve Jones, Anson Boon (“Crawl,” “1917”) as John Lydon, Louis Partridge (“Enola Homes”) as Sid Vicious, Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Maisie Williams (“Game of Thrones”) as punk icon Jordan, Dylan Llewellyn (“Derry Girls”) as Wally Nightingale, Sydney Chandler (“Don’t Worry Darling”) as Chrissie Hynde, and Emma Appleton (“The Witcher,” “Traitors”) as Nancy Spungen.
Here’s the synopsis:
Anchored by Jones’ memoir, which offers a fascinating new perspective on one of rock’s greatest ever stories, Pistol moves from West London’s council estates, to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Kings Road SEX shop, to the international controversy that came with the release of Never Mind the Bollocks, which is frequently listed as one of the most influential albums of all time. Their single “God Save the Queen” was banned by the BBC and reached Number 1 on the U.K.’s NME chart, but appeared at Number 2 on the Official U.K. Singles chart, leading to accusations that the song was purposely kept off the top spot. For the only time in chart history, the track was listed as a blank, to avoid offense to the monarchy.
Created by Craig Pearce, Danny Boyle directs the entire series, and all six episodes of FX’s “Pistol” begin streaming May 31 on Hulu. Watch the teaser trailer below.
