James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) very quietly slipped away from Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny and completely disappeared. As the dust settled on an expensive flop for Lucasfilm, he set about what looks like a passion project, a Bob Dylan biopic – A Complete Unknown.
Now Searchlight Pictures has premiered the trailer. It stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan. It is set in New York in the early 1960s and charts the rise of Dylan from a 19-year-old Minnesota musician and folk singer to his gigs in concert halls and, eventually, the top of the charts.
It is specifically centered around the controversy surrounding his switch to electric guitars and early in development it was titled Going Electric.
Even as the movie was at risk of being canceled in the COVID-19 slow-down and then the various strikes, Chalamet spent time researching Dylan. He visited the former homes of Dylan in New York City and worked with the same team of vocal and movement coaches that worked with Austin Butler for his performance in Elvis.
The movie will culminate with his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Edward Norton co-stars as Pete Seeger, with Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, P. J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Norbert Leo Butz as Alan Lomax, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, and Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth.
Searchlight plans to have the movie in US cinemas by December, and the rest of the world by January.