Fans for “Weird” Al Yankovic got a treat this week.
Videos by American Songwriter
That’s right, the new trailer for the musician’s biopic dropped earlier this week and it features Daniel Radcliffe playing the parody artist. There’s also a cameo by The Office star Rainn Wilson.
Check out the new trailer below.
“Weird” Al is, of course, the most popular musical parody artist in existence, having earned 6 platinum albums, five Grammy Awards, and many more accolades for songs like “Eat It,” a Michael Jackson parody of “Beat It”; “Like A Surgeon,” a Madonna parody of “Like a Virgin”; and more.
The parody songwriter shared the new trailer on Twitter and wrote to his five-million fans, “Get psyched.”
The news of the biopic dropped a few months ago, as American Songwriter reported.
“When my last movie ‘UHF’ came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork,” said Yankovic in a previous statement. “I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule.”
Directed and co-written by executive producer Eric Appel, who worked with Yankovic on his fake biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, in 2013 (see trailer below), the film starred Yankovic, along with Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, Patton Oswalt, Olivia Wilde, Gary Cole Mary Steenburgen, and Paul Scheer.
“When Weird Al first sat me down against my will and told me his life story, I didn’t believe any of it,” said Appel, “but I knew that we had to make a movie about it.”
A Funny or Die and Tango production for the Roku Channel, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was written and produced by Yankovic and will explore the comedian’s earlier years and his rise to fame in the 1980s with parody hits.
A five-time Grammy Award-winner, Yankovic’s 2014 release Mandatory Fun was the first comedy album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200. Yankovic is also one of three artists to have their own Top 40 hits in each of the last four decades and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.
“I am absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film,” said Yankovic. “I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for.”
Check out the trailer for Yankovic’s fake biopic from 2013 below.
Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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