KISS may be winding down their touring years, but that doesn’t mean you’ve seen the last of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. Not by a long-shot. The long-running greasepaint rockers will revisit their early years in an upcoming biopic slated to hit Netflix in 2024 according to longtime manager Doc McGhee.
McGhee discussed the project recently on The Rock Experience With Mike Brunn show, revealing, “It’s a biopic about the first four years of KISS. We’re just starting it now. We’ve already sold it, it’s already done, we have a director, McG. That’s moving along and that’ll come in ’24.” It appeared that McGhee was referring to Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle director and veteran music video helmer McG, who most recently worked with Jennifer Garner on the Netflix body swap comedy Family Leave; at press time a spokesperson for McG had not returned Billboard‘s request for confirmation on his role in the film.
Singer and co-founder Paul Stanley had earlier let the cat out of the bag in April 2021, when he tweeted out a link to a Deadline story with early details on the project. That story revealed that the Bohemian Rhapsody-style biopic, Shout It Out Loud, was slated to be directed by Joachim Rønning, whose credits include Kon-Tiki and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and written by Ole Sanders. At press time no information was available on casting for the film or the current directing/writing team.
Stanley and bassist/singer and fellow co-founder Gene Simmons are cooperating on the project, which will chronicle their more than half-century friendship and the formation of the group in Queens, New York in the early 1970s with former founding members drummer Peter Criss and lead guitarist Ace Frehley.
Simmons and Stanley recently confirmed what they said are their final run of concerts ever, two shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden slated for Dec. 1 and 2. Ahead of the back-to-back nights at the iconic New York City venue, KISS will play 17 other shows across the U.S. and Canada as part of its End of the Road World Tour, including stops in Los Angeles, Seattle, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Baltimore.
In the interview with Brunn, McGhee said that while the Gene and Paul era of KISS is ending later this year, he doesn’t see it as the end of the brand, which he compared to the Marvel universe. “Will there be other forms of KISS maybe in the future after I’m gone and after they’re gone?” he teased. “I don’t see that KISS goes away,” he added, suggesting that the brand could continue in different forms into the future and that a deal to potentially sell their likenesses isn’t out of the question.
Check out the McGhee interview below.
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