It's a busy time to be Francis Lawrence. The Hunger Games franchise director is back in the world of Suzanne Collins' books with the prequel film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which is set to release next year, and, he recently boarded Netflix's BioShock adaptation as the director. On top of it all, it was announced back in September that he'll be tackling a bastion of 90s nostalgia with a Sublime biopic. With Lawrence in the midst of so many exciting projects, Collider's own Steve Weintraub sat down with the director to discuss it all while the director was doing press for Slumberland.
During their interview, Lawrence was asked about the period of time the Sublime film would span and if it would focus on a specific part of their history. The band has quite the story, beginning as an underground band in Southern California with their mix of reggae, ska, and punk before becoming stars in their home state. They'd briefly launch into the stratosphere after putting out their legendary self-titled major label debut which contained their biggest hits like "Santeria" and "What I Got." However, their time together would be cut short following the untimely death of lead singer Bradley Nowell who died of a heroin overdose.
Lawrence narrowed the film down to a specific period in the band's history, though he admits he won't strictly adhere to that, occasionally jumping around in Sublime's timeline. Moreover, he talked about his personal history with the band and how cool it was to step back into that world:
"It's definitely a specific period of time, and it jumps around a little bit for sure. It's a pretty damn cool script. I'm really excited just because I have a bit of a history with most of the guys in the band. I never worked with Sublime back in the video days, but not too long after Bradley died, I actually worked with what they turned into, which is the Long Beach Dub Allstars. When I went down to Long Beach to shoot this lifestyle video for that band, I was with Miguel [Happoldt], who was the band's manager, and I was around Opie [Ortiz], the tattoo artist who created the big famous logo, and around Bud [Gaugh], and just the remaining band members, including Marshall [Goodman], and Lou Dog was still around. We shot around all their haunts in Long Beach."
In every sense, Lawrence was thrilled to be attached to the project, especially with Ozark's Chris Mundy penning the script. Thanks to working closely with the remaining band members, he'll have the rights to their entire catalog too, from their beloved early mix tapes to the jams that made them legends. He continued:
It was a world that I became familiar with, and people I became familiar with, and I also loved the music. When this got brought up that we could get the rights, it was super exciting. Then we just got a great writer and have a pretty amazing script for a first draft that's really pretty damn good. It could be really, I think, really interesting and fun, in the way Slumberland was fun for me because it was very different. This would also be very different compared to the other things I've done.
Lawrence on Dream Casting for Bradley Nowell
While it's way too early to consider casting for the film, Lawrence also talked about his ideal casting for Sublime's frontman Nowell. Given the singer's importance to the band and the songs, the director is a bit conflicted as to how to portray him in the film. He was the voice of the band's biggest successes and, as much fun as it would be for a star to lend their vocals to the tracks, Lawrence would rather give Nowell his due:
Obviously, that's something we have to think more about. I mean, my instinct is that we would actually use Brad's voice. That's my instinct. Even though I know a lot of people like to have the actors want to do stuff like Val Kilmer singing the Jim Morrison parts from The Doors. But I feel like they're Bradley's songs.
Joining Lawrence and Mundy on the film are producers Dave Kaplan and Peter Paterno with 3000 Pictures and Chernin Entertainment developing at Sony Pictures. We'll have more information on the biopic as work gets underway. Stay tuned here at Collider for the full interview with Lawrence.
In the meantime, check out a smaller clip of Lawrence discussing how the Constantine sequel is finally happening with Keanu Reeves.