Bob Dylan has personally contributed to the script for director James Mangold’s upcoming biopic based on the legendary folk musician.
Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Mangold discussed the upcoming Bob Dylan film, which will be titled A Complete Unknown. When asked if the Bob Dylan was involved in the film at all, Mangold revealed that the musician had “personally annotated” the script, and that Dylan and Mangold had spent several days together discussing the film.
A Complete Unknown, which will star Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, is set to begin filming in August, per comments from Mangold in April. Mangold also confirmed that Chalamet would be doing his own singing in the film.
While talking to Happy Sad Confused, Mangold also revealed that the film will not be a “typical biopic”, in that it won’t tell the entirely of Dylan’s life and career thusfar. Instead, it will focus on “a very specific moment” in the 1960s.
“It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early ’60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pockets hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of a nerve disease,” Mangold explained.
“And he sings Woody a song that he wrote for him and befriends Pete Seeger, who is like a son to Woody. And Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world, and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivalling the Beatles.”
The project was first announced in 2020, before being delayed indefinitely later that year with no release timeframe shared.
Mangold’s most recent work comes in the form of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which is screening in cinemas now. The film scored a four-star review with Lou Thomas writing for NME: “It’s a lively, enthralling tale with some particularly emotive scenes in the final act that are bound to cause a tear or two. Some will ask why make this film at all? The answer should be, why not?”