The Script For a Biopic Starring Timothée Chalamet Has Been Personally Annotated by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has personally contributed to the script for director James Mangold’s forthcoming biopic based on the legendary folk musician.

Mangold talked about the impending Bob Dylan movie, ‘A Complete Unknown’, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. When asked if Bob Dylan was engaged in the movie in any way, Mangold said that the artist had “personally annotated” the script and that they had discussed it for several days.

According to remarks made by Mangold in April, production on ‘A Complete Unknown’, which will feature Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, is scheduled to start in August. Chalamet will perform his own song in the movie, Mangold added.

In his interview with Happy Sad Confused, Mangold also disclosed that the movie won’t be a typical biopic in the sense that it won’t cover everything of Dylan’s life and work to that point. Instead, a very specific moment in the 1960s will be the focus.

“It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early ’60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pockets hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of a nerve disease,” Mangold explained.

“And he sings Woody a song that he wrote for him and befriends Pete Seeger, who is like a son to Woody. And Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world, and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivalling the Beatles.”

The project was initially announced in 2020, however later that year it was postponed indefinitely with no release date provided.

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’, Mangold’s most recent film, is currently playing in theaters.

—Silviya.Y