With the success of Bohemian Rhapsody, The Dirt, Lords of Chaos and Rocketman in 2019, one of the hottest topics to discuss with bands is whether or not they’d want a biopic done on them. Metallica have decades of stories to tell, but Lars Ulrich thinks it would be a bit complicated to do so.
“The biopic thing, I think that’s more of a cautionary tale, which kind of falls in under the whole thing with autobiographies. I’m not sold on the idea,” he admitted to Collider, adding the challenges of having to be entirely truthful when writing an autobiography at all.
“And to be 100 percent truthful, it’s hard to tell the stories without bringing other people into it, and then you sort of get into that whole thing where maybe the protagonist in that particular story wouldn’t want the story told,” the drummer elaborated. “So, to me, it’s kind of a dilemma of, these stories deserve the truth if you’re going to talk about them, but at the same time, you can’t take for granted that everybody who’s involved in those stories wants those stories out there.”
Ulrich went on to compare the situation to posting a photo with someone on social media without asking their permission first, but did acknowledge that he would be interested in seeing Metallica’s history told in a movie.
“If it’s going to be more of autobiography, I think that’s going to be way more challenging because there’s so many biopics where you kind of sit and roll your eyes,” he said. “I guess somewhere I’m just kind of a stickler for the truth, for some reason, so if you’re not gonna tell the truth, then maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all. That’s where it gets a little complicated for me, but let’s see how it plays out.”
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