Directorial debut from Ozzy Osbourne’s son will be an original horror film featuring his father’s band’s music
Jack Osbourne is to direct his first feature film, Black Sabbath, according to reports.
Not to be confused with Mario Bava’s 1963 Italian portmanteau, from which the band fronted by Jack’s father, Ozzy, took their name, Black Sabbath will be an original horror film featuring the group’s music.
While this will be Osbourne’s first directing job, it is not his first foray into the world of film; he co-produced concert documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, which premiered at the Tribeca film festival last weekend. Osbourne Jr is again joining forces with producer Marc Weingarten, who co-produced the recent documentary. Shooting is to begin by the end of the year.
Plot details have yet to be released but it is thought the film may be the same project that Sabbath’s lead guitarist, Tony Iommi, was linked to a few years ago, along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre producer Mike Fleiss, who directed God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Whether Iommi is involved this time is not clear, though he was to score the original project and was the only member of Black Sabbath to be present throughout all of the band’s personnel changes.
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Films about Ozzy Osbourne, musicals star Carol Channing and Elton John to feature, with the last performing a one-off concert
Music will be at the heart of the 2011 Tribeca film festival – the 10th edition of the annual event co-founded by Robert De Niro to help reinvigorate the area devastated by 9/11 – which opens in New York later today.
Cameron Crowe’s documentary about Elton John, The Union, is expected to be a highlight, and there will also be screenings of factual films about Ozzy Osbourne, Kings of Leon and musicals star Carol Channing. This year’s films will also include the directorial debut of actor Vera Farmiga and a documentary on transsexual tennis player Renée Richards, who successfully overturned a ban to stop her playing on the women’s professional circuit in the mid-70s.
Elton John will perform a special concert tonight following the screening of The Union, which documents his collaboration with US musician and songwriter Leon Russell. Osbourne and Channing are also set to attend the festival, which will run until 1 May.
“We didn’t really think about [the music theme] as we were programming. We sort of realised it halfway through,” David Kwok, the festival’s director of programming, told the LA Times. “And then when we were finished, we looked back and realised we had something.”
Mike Fleiss, director of God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, said his film hoped to remind audiences of the singer’s musical legacy.
“I think people tend to view Ozzy through the lens of The Osbournes, his MTV show,” he said. “They think he’s this buffoonish old rock dude who shuffles around the house yelling at his wife. What we tried to do is reclaim Ozzy for what he really is – a great artist, as well as a very complex and often troubled human being.”
Farmiga’s film is a 1960s-set drama titled Higher Ground in which she also takes a starring role. Set in a tight-knit spiritual community, it’s a study of one woman’s awakening in unlikely circumstances.
Tribeca – which was founded in 2001 by De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff to support growth and culture in Manhattan following the World Trade Centre attacks – announced earlier this week that directors David O Russell, David Gordon Green and Atom Egoyan would be among the 38 festival jurors for the various prizes, a number that also includes the actors Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Dano, Michael Cera and Anna Kendrick.
Ben Child
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