One of my favorite movie genres is the musician biopic that makes musicians seem like the legends they are by dramatizing the Hell out of their lives using talented young actors. You know, movies like Walk The Line, Ray, Notorious. My favorite movie of this kind is I’m Not There about Bob Dylan; using seven separate actors playing seven separate characters that are all based on some form of Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan).

Here’s a musician I think should have a biopic made about him someday: Axl Rose.

There Was A Time: The Axl Rose Story

1962

The film starts out with quick scenes of a 16 year old mother giving birth to a baby boy in Lafayette, Indiana she names William Bruce Rose, Jr. Her husband is abusive and leaves soon after, but the mother remarries and changes her baby’s name to her new husband’s: Bailey.

Paul Dano 1978 – 1982

Cut to William Bailey as a teenager singing in church choirs with his step-siblings as the Bailey Trio. He plays piano and is poor in school. While going through some family papers one day he discovers his birth certificate and realizes the man he thought was his father is not! Woah! This is the “Ray Charles’ brother dies in the washtub” moment. He starts getting hassled by the police and grows his hair very long which get him called a girl by people and even kicked out of his own house. He and his best friend Izzy Stradlin only have one outlet: rock music, of course. One day Izzy leaves for LA to make it big and William soon follows after changing his name to W. “Axl” Rose.

Keira Knightley 1984 – 1990

The overnight success of Guns N’ Roses. Thin, outrageous, charismatic, loose cannon. Starts out with Axl playing in Hollywood Rose for crowds of seven, forming Guns N’ Roses where their days consist solely of practicing, doing drugs and smoking cigarettes for research studies at UCLA. Coked up and paranoid all the time. This is the Axl Rose everyone wants to see! Big scenes are Axl Rose smashing his wall to wall mirrors, being booed because of the “One In A Million” controversy and telling a woman he’d sign with her record company if she walks down Sunset Strip naked. What a guy!

Cillian Murphy 1990 – 1992

This is the part of the film that gets meta. Like in I’m Not There how Heath Ledger plays an actor that in the movie plays the portrayal of Bob Dylan played by Christian Bale; Cillian Murphy is going to play Keira Knightley’s character based on Axl Rose through a series of music videos fictionalizing his life. AKA it’ll just be a remake of the Use Your Illusion music videos “Don’t Cry”, “November Rain” and “Estranged”. Axl already did the work for us by making insane, over the top, over produced, melodrama music videos for these songs. Just remake them and replace Axl Rose (who can’t act for shit) with Cillian Murphy (who was at least really good in Batman Begins). It’s so easy (no pun intended)! The order of the videos will create a bit of controversy with fan boys too, which is always really fun. These three videos comibined equals about twenty-five minutes so this portrayal will take up roughly 1/4 of the film.

Jake Gyllenhaal 1993 – 1995

With the Use Your Illusion tour fading out and the band on top of the music scene he’s rich, he’s famous, he’s a complete success. But the videos are the subject of ridicule and Axl seems to be more ridiculous than dangerous. He has horrible fights with his girlfriend. Then his protege Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon dies of a drug over dose. What a troubled man! To avoid the public he locks himself away in his LA apartment for years. Such a cliche.

Mark Wahlberg 1999 – 2006

This is the period in Axl’s life where he’s not such a hot item. Mark Wahlberg in those shitty dreadlocks and an all new band at the 2002 VMA Music Awards. Then there’s the tours that start and stop abruptly, concerts that start hours late while Axl watches football games. It’s a sad and pathetic character. With Buckethead always standing behind him it should seem as if Death is stalking him. Cryptic, I know. This chapter of Axl’s life ends with him a desperate man spaced out on prescription drugs all the time getting into fist fights with Tommy Hilfiger. Marky Mark should put on some weight.

Brad Pitt 2009

Axl Rose with an all new band finally releases Chinese Democracy after fourteen years. It is reviewed well and Axl seems to have his legend back. This character portrayal is one scene with him conducting an interview over the phone in his apartment in LA. He is asked if he ever misses the old days and he thinks fondly to himself, takes a sip of tea, laughs politely, “No.” Then he hangs up on them. Black.

Now tell me right now you wouldn’t see that movie.