Forty-plus years into their career, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are still going strong, with two full-length albums in 2022. But now it’s time for a first for the rock band: the big screen. Variety reports that Universal has optioned the rights to “Scar Tissue,” the 2004 memoir of RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis. It’s no surprise the studio wants to make the book into a film after twenty years. “Scar Tissue” was a runaway success, hitting #1 on the New York Times bestseller list when it was first published.
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Kiedis co-write the memoir with Larry Sloman, a look at the singer coming of age as he and his band become a wildly popular fixture in LA’s music scene. In a press statment, Universal calls “Scar Tissue” “a shockingly candid portrait of an artist, addict, and ringleader” as well as a “a deeply unconventional father and son story set against a substance-fueled ’70s and ’80s L.A. punk scene. This story examines, without judgment, how all of his experiences shaped the music that was eventually embraced by millions.”
No word on who will play Kiedis in “Scar Tissue” yet, but the front will be co-produce the project along with Imagine Entertainment‘s Brian Glazer and Guy Oseary, manager for RHCP since 2021.
“Scar Tissue” found an immediate audience thanks to Kiedis’ frank depiction of his drug-filled youth, with the singer having mixed feelings about its success for a time. “I did regret the book for a while as there was some pain caused,” the frontman told the Sun in 2016. “But then, I started seeing the long term positive reverberating. People were reading it in hospitals, in prisons and schools and it was having a positive effect. I realized that the whole point of writing that book wasn’t for me, but to show that somebody can go all the way down and come all the way back and have a productive, successful happy interesting life. And so whatever shame, pain or difficulty or discomfort I went through, then it was worth it because I get so many people coming up to me saying their kids had read it and got their act together because of it.”
Now in their sixties (except for guitarist John Frusciante, who’s 53), the Red Hot Chili Peppers continue to tour, with 2024 dates including Bonnaroo in Tennessee in June and the Harley-Davidson Homecoming Festival in Milwaukee in July. As for when “Scar Tissue” will hit theaters? Don’t expect it until 2025 at the earliest.
