Well, this is some sufficiently weird casting: Deadline reports that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is slated to play “Weird Al” Yankovic in a forthcoming Roku original biopic.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will stream exclusively on The Roku Channel. It’s penned by the master of parody songs himself, along with Funny or Die’s Eric Appel, who will also direct the film. Production on the movie is slated to kick off early next month in Los Angeles. According to Deadline, it “promises to hold nothing back and explore every facet of his life, from his childhood through his meteoric rise to fame with early hits like ‘Eat It’ and ‘Like a Surgeon,’ while touching on his torrid celebrity love affairs and famously depraved lifestyle.”
“When Weird Al first sat me down against my will and told me his life story, I didn’t believe any of it, but I knew that we had to make a movie about it,” Appel said in a press release announcing the film.
“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. I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule. And I am absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film,” Yankovic added. “I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for.”
“There clearly aren’t enough biopic movies about famous musicians and we were excited to shine a light on the incredibly true, unexaggerated story of Weird Al,” Roku’s head of original scripted programming Colin Davis said in a statement. “This is sincerely the ultimate combination of talent, creativity, and friends, coming together to make something genuinely funny and we could not be prouder to call this film a Roku Original.”
No word yet on when exactly we’ll get to watch Radcliffe complete his transformation from child wizard to “White & Nerdy” mastermind.
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