FX has ordered a limited series about Steve Jones, guitarist in the iconoclastic punk band the Sex Pistols. Based on Jones’ memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, the series, called Pistol, will have six episodes.
Danny Boyle is executive producer and director. Craig Pearce created the series and wrote it with Frank Cottrell. Alongside them in the executive producer ranks are Gail Lyon, Anita Camarata, Tracey Seaward, Paul Lee, Hope Hartman and the studio wiip.
FX Productions is producing the series, which begins production March 7.
“It’s great to be back in business with Danny Boyle, an exceptional artist responsible for so many great feature films and TV series,” said Nick Grad, president, original programming, FX Entertainment. “Steve Jones was at the center of the storm that shook the rock establishment and we’re thrilled to have Danny and the rest of the creative team tell his story as a member of one of music’s most notorious bands -- the Sex Pistols.”
The band, which had singer Johnny Rotten and bassist Sid Vicious in its ranks, formed in London in 1975.
Boyle’s films include Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. He worked on the FX series Trust, about John Paul Getty III.
“Imagine breaking into the world of The Crown and Downton Abbey with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent,” said Boyle. “This is the moment that British society and culture changed forever. It is the detonation point for British street culture...where ordinary young people had the stage and vented their fury and their fashion…and everyone had to watch & listen…and everyone feared them or followed them. The Sex Pistols. At its center was a young charming illiterate kleptomaniac -- a hero for the times -- Steve Jones, who became in his own words, the 94th greatest guitarist of all time. This is how he got there.”
Pistol stars Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Anson Boon as John Lydon, Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious, Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Fabien Frankel as Glen Matlock and Dylan Llewellyn as Wally Nightingale.
“Pistol moves from West London’s council estates, to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Kings Road SEX shop, to the international controversy that came with the release of Never Mind the Bollocks,” said FX.
Paul Lee, former ABC executive, is CEO of wiip. “The Sex Pistols changed music forever and Danny Boyle is the perfect director to tell Steve Jones’ story fueled by raw creativity and destruction,” said Lee. “We’re thrilled to be making this with our friends at FX.”
