A father and son filmmaking team have revealed that they’re working on a biopic of American singer Daniel Johnston.
It’s not the first time the 49-year-old Texan musician has been captured on screen. The cult songwriter was the subject of a 2005 documentary titled The Devil And Daniel Johnston, which took out the Documentary Directing Award prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Johnston, who famously suffers from bipolar disorder and has also battled drug addiction throughout his life, became famous over a decade ago back in Austin, Texas, for his lo-fi, ‘outsider folk’ songs, and has since collaborated with the likes of Beck, Sparklehorse, Death Cab For Cutie and Eels amongst others. His most recent release is 2009’s Is And Always Was, while Johnston’s also a renowned cartoonist/illustrator. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain brought the eccentric singer to worldwide attention back in the ‘90s, when he donned one of his iconic, “Hi, how are you?” T-shirts.
David and Jordan Miller are currently promoting their new film called My Suicide, a “coming of age comedy” which features a soundtrack featuring MGMT, TV On The Radio and My Morning Jacket. According to David Miller, the biopic will “be an epic super hero story” which won’t cover the same narrative that The Devil And Daniel Johnston doco did. My Suicide star Gabriel Sunday will direct the film and star as the young version of Johnston, while the Millers say they’re hoping to entice “huge Daniel Johnston fans” to play him at his current age – including Hollywood actors such as “Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly.”