After several years in pre-preproduction, KISS‘ biopic, Shout It Out Loud, has finally been picked up by Netflix and will be released in 2024.
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Directed by Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) and executive produced by Dorothy Canton and David Hopwood, Shout It Out Loud — named after the band’s 1976 Destroyer track — will chronicle the band’s early years through their rise as rock legends.
Written by Ole Sanders, the film will chronicle the beginnings of the band in New York City in 1973 with founding members singer Paul Stanley, bassist Gene Simmons, drummer Peter Criss and lead guitarist Ace Frehley.
The band’s longtime manager Doc McGhee said that the film also centers around the first several years of the band.
“It’s a biopic about the first four years of KISS,” said McGhee. “We’re just starting it now. We’ve already sold it. It’s already done. We have a director. … That’s moving along and that’ll come in ’24.”
Stanley also revealed that they were casting actors “in their early 20s” for accuracy in the film. “I don’t know a whole lot of actors in their early 20s,” said Stanley. “When people get asked these kinds of questions, they’ll say, ‘Oh, Brad Pitt,’ or this one or that one. Well, those guys are in their 50s or 60s, so you’re talking about another generation of actors. And I’m the first to say I’m not up on a lot of them.”
Stanley added, “But as the casting process goes on, I’ll certainly be there and watching. It’ll be interesting to see how someone else — be it the casting people or the director — how they view who I am and who they see doing that. I think I’ll learn a lot about their perception of me by who they cast.”
The biopic is one part of a larger scale of releases and projects tied to KISS before they embark on their End of the Road Tour in 2023.
“Will there be other forms of KISS maybe in the future after I’m gone and after they’re gone?” said McGhee, comparing the band’s brand to the Marvel universe. “I don’t see that KISS goes away.”
After more than 50 years together KISS is about to embark on its final run of tour dates, which will wrap up on December 1 and 2 at Madison Square Garden in the band’s hometown of New York.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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