Kiss Plotting Biopic on Band’s Early Days and Formation
Longtime Kiss manager Doc McGhee has revealed that the band is “in the middle” of a feature film project.
“It’s basically the formation of Kiss and how that came about,” the music veteran revealed during a Q&A on board the Kiss Kruise.
McGhee is no stranger to the world of biopics. The manager also worked with Motley Crue in the ‘80s, resulting in his character appearing in the film The Dirt. To that end, he didn’t sound overly impressed with the Crue movie.
“It’s not very deep,” McGhee said of The Dirt, adding that he thought the band “was more important” to music and culture than the movie portrayed. The manager went on to note that the production hired the director of Jackass, "and that’s what they got.”
Kiss have ventured into the cinematic world before. Notably, the 1999 movie Detroit Rock City centered its plot on a ‘70s-era Kiss concert. It was a box-office failure, a response McGhee partly attributed to misguided expectations.
“We did Detroit Rock City, which I thought was a better film than what everybody thought it was. I think now it’s become more of a classic than it was when it came out,” the manager opined. “I think that they played the Kiss card too soon. If somebody said this is a U2 movie, whether I like U2 or don’t like U2, I might not go see it, because it was a U2 film. But it [Detroit Rock City] was really a coming-of-age film.
“So for us now, for a biopic, like a Bohemian Rhapsody or something like that, it’s important to make sure you have the right partners, and you don’t get Jackass. You get something that’s true to what Kiss is.”
When asked about a timeline for the film's release, McGhee was noncommittal. “We’re in the middle of it now, and I think it will come out before the end of next year. It should … ,” he paused, smiled, started to laugh and said, "Or it won't come out. That film is the only one we're looking at."