Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a Roku original biopic which will explore every facet of Yankovic’s life, from his meteoric rise to fame with early hits like ‘Eat It’ and ‘Like a Surgeon’ to his torrid celebrity love affairs and famously depraved lifestyle.
Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter franchise, The Lost City) is tapped to play “Weird Al”, a musician known for parodying specific songs by contemporary musical acts, but also for performing original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts.
Yankovic is producing alongside Mike Farah, Joe Farrell and Whitney Hodack for Funny Or Die, and Tim Headington, Lia Buman and Max Silva for Tango. Appel is executing producing with Funny Or Die’s Henry Muñoz III and Tango’s Neil Shah. Appel revealed that he didn’t believe Weird Al when he sat him down and told him his life story, but that he knew “he had to make a movie about it”.
Yankovic admits he is “absolutely thrilled” that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying him in a film, adding that he is sure that this is the role future generation will remember him for – a bold statement, considering we are talking about Harry Potter, but Yankovic has “no doubts” in what he is claiming.
Now another star is confirmed to join Radcliffe in the biopic- Evan Rachel Wood. Wood, best known for her role in Westworld, will play Madonna, whose “Like a Virgin” Yankovic parodied into “Like a Surgeon”. Amongst the other newly announced castings, there is Rainn Wilson (The Office) Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) and Toby Huss (Dickinson).
Yankovic is the best-selling comedy recording artist of all time. According to Roku, he is one of only three artists to have had Top 40 hits in each of the last four decades, the other two being Madonna and Michael Jackson.
The movie will be available on The Roku Channel upon its release.
