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The Who‘s long-awaited Keith Moon biopic, tentatively titled The Real Me, will begin filming in June, according to Variety. The film, which is being executive produced by Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and the Who’s longtime manager Bill Curbishley, will be directed by Paul Whittington — best known for The Crown and White House Farm, with the script by noted British screenwriter Jeff Pope, who snagged an Oscar-nom for Philomena.
White Horse Pictures, led by Nigel Sinclair and Guy East, will produce the feature, following their work on such acclaimed recent rock docs as Martin Scorsese‘s George Harrison: Living In The Material World, and Ron Howard‘s Beatles documentary Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years.
Roger Daltrey has been spearheading the Moon biopic for years — with not much progress to show for his time. He explained to us that it’s a daunting task taking such a larger-than-life figure such as the Who drummer and squeezing it onto the screen: “It’s a very difficult project because I don’t want anything in it that people expect. Well, there’s a few things, but I want to tell people about the real Moon, not just the bits and pieces they know. And it’s very, very difficult to get it into a, an hour-and-45-minute narrative. It’s not easy.”
During his recent appearance on Britain’s The One Show, Roger Daltrey touched upon his desire to make a film that captures the essence of Keith Moon: “I want to make a movie about Keith — I don’t wanna make a movie about the Who — and I do not wanna make a biopic. I want to make a film to try and really capture the complexities of Keith Moon. Because a lot of people think they know about him and they obviously know about these funny exploits; but there were so many sides to Keith Moon. He was fearless, he was crazy — every part of his personality was in excess.”
Keith Moon died on September 7th, 1978 at age 32. Moon’s death, which was ruled accidental, was caused by an overdose of Heminevrin, a medication prescribed to help alleviate alcohol withdrawals, mixed with alcohol.