Jeff Tremaine to Direct Motley Crue Movie ‘The Dirt’

November 2nd, 2013

Kevin Blumeyer

Speaking with Deadline, longtime Jackass helmer Jeff Tremaine has announced he’s going to direct the The Dirt. A big-screen adaptation of the infamous Motley Crue biography The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band has been discussed virtually since the day the book was published in 2001, with names like Larry Charles (Borat, Bruno) and David Fincher attached to direct at various stages.

Tremaine’s Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa debuted at the the top of the U.S. box office last weekend, pulling in more than $32 million to put an end to Gravity‘s three-week reign. The all-important casting process for The Dirt is just getting underway, so leave some suggestions for who would make a good Tommy Lee or Vince Neil in the comments.

The interview goes into great detail about the film’s tone and Tremaine’s passion for the project, and you can read the quote after the jump.

“I’ve been offered a lot of scripts but Dirt is something I pursued with everything I had. I’ve wanted to make this going back to 2001, when we were just planning the first Jackass movie and I found out that David Gale at MTV Films had just optioned the book. First of all, I had no idea how to make Jackass into a movie, but I said to him, let me direct that movie, too. He said, yeah, of course! He was being sarcastic, because he had the same level of confidence in me as a director as I did at that time. Luckily for me, the movie never got made, and when this project became available, I put everything I had into chasing it and convincing everyone that I am the right guy for it. I really feel I am.”

“We were deep into doing Jackass on TV and about to start doing Jackass: The Movie and we were all passing the book around and going, holy shit! We thought we were being crazy on the road. You read about these guys and it was like 10 times worse, though I think we’d done stuff that stands up to anybody else. I connected with that book on so many levels. From a band of brothers that gets ripped apart and then pulls back together, or being part of a group that is expected to behave badly, and what happens to you when that becomes your expectation. What happens when everybody encourages you and gives you money to be the worst behaved you can be? You can do no wrong, and the worse you do, the more you’re celebrated. It is a story that is somehow familiar to me.”

“It’s the spirit we’ve got to get right. It’s important to get actors who play, or who understand how to deliver the charisma it takes to be onstage. Rock stars have a swagger. Some of what they went through is funny, but overall this movie is not going to be a comedy. It’s pretty dark. I think fans of what I’ve done will like this movie, but it’s not going to make you fall out of your chair laughing.”