Alan Rickman to Play CBGB Founder in Biopic

The British actor Alan Rickman has agreed to play Hilly Kristal, the founder of the famous East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in a biographical film to be shot this summer, the producers said on Wednesday.

Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAlan Rickman

The project has been in development for several years, but the filmmakers — Jody Savin and Randall Miller  – say they are finally set to begin filming on June 25, with Mr. Rickman taking on the part of the iconoclastic bearded, flannel-wearing bar owner who played a key role in the birth of punk and new wave music in the 1970s, providing the scarred stage where the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Blondie and other seminal groups got their starts.

Mr. Rickman played Steven Spurrier, a snobby wine expert, in the last feature film by Ms. Savin and Mr. Miller — “Bottle Shock” from 2008.

Mr. Kristal, who was an aspiring songwriter of folk and country tunes, opened the narrow CBGB club on the Bowery in the early 1970s, hoping to book country, bluegrass and blues acts. (Hence the initials CBGB.) But in the end his wide-open philosophy of showcasing any local band with original songs led him in a different direction, and he ended up being a paterfamilias for the punk movement.   He died of cancer in August 2007, a year after he closed the club because of a long-running dispute over back rent with the landlord.

Mr. Miller, who will also direct, said the film will focus on Mr. Kristal’s life during the club’s early years.  He said he has always been fascinated with stories about people who set out with one goal and end up having a different but important impact on the world.   “It’s mostly about his journey,” he said. “He’s like a modern-day salonist.  It’s not his métier, the whole atmosphere of punk, but he became a supporter of the art.”

Mr. Miller said the club’s grubby and graffiti-covered interior would be recreated on a soundstage in Georgia.  But the exterior scenes will be filmed in New York City.  Several rock figures with ties to the club are expected to make cameo appearances, he said.

If all goes according to plan, he and Ms. Savin hope to have the film make its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January and release it later in 2013.   Mr. Miller and Ms. Savin’s company, Unclaimed Freight Productions, is producing the film, along with Brad Rosenberger, a former executive at Warner-Chappell Music.  Mr. Kristal’s daughter, Lisa Kristal Burgman, who controls his estate, is serving as an adviser to the filmmakers, but is not a producer.

The film comes as a group of investors who have bought the assets of the former club are starting a new music festival in New York City under the famous name.  The investors also have plans to reopen the club with many of the original fixtures and memorabilia at a different location in downtown Manhattan.

Source & Image : New York Times