The long-gestating Ozzy Osbourne biopic has reached a milestone it has been circling for years: the script is finished, and the film is now being offered to directors.
Jack Osbourne, one of the producers, delivered the update in a new interview with E! News, and used it to spell out the governing principle behind the project.
"I kind of have this mantra, and I always kind of say it, when in meetings with my mom or doing anything in the family business, it's, like, 'Give the fans what they want,'" he said. "That's our people. That's who we're catering to. That's what my dad wrote music for. That's what he toured for. It's why we did the shows we did. It's been a big theme. 'Cause we're doing the Ozzy movie with Sony, and I'm always saying in the meetings, 'All right, we gotta give the fans what they want. We can't make this artsy kind of esoteric biopic.' No. We're not doing that — for many reasons, but it's not what the fans want."
On where the film stands: "Script is done. We're currently going out to directors. And, yeah, it's gung-ho."
Casting is the piece everyone wants and nobody is getting. Asked whether he has someone in mind to play his father, Jack said: "We do. We do. I'm not allowed to say. But conversations have been had, and if it all works out, it's gonna be awesome." In January he had described the choice as a "phenomenal, phenomenal actor" — and confirmed a director was already attached at that point, which sits oddly against this week's "going out to directors".
The scope has narrowed since the project began. Speaking to Billy Corgan on "The Magnificent Others" in February, Jack said the original plan spanned from Ozzy's youth to the mid-1990s before being cut down: "In my perfect vision of it, it would be kind of tail end of SABBATH, him going solo. You gotta have the love story. And that's kind of the main focus of the film, and all the craziness that happened in the early '80s and Randy's tragic death. But, yeah, it's an origin story."
Variety first reported the Sony Pictures and Polygram Entertainment partnership in October 2021, with Lee Hall — who scripted "Rocketman" — writing. By Jack's own count the film has been in development at Sony for roughly six years.
He also revisited the backlash over the family's deal with Hyperreal and Proto Hologram for a life-sized A.I.-powered Ozzy avatar. "Admittedly, I think I spoke kind of out of turn in the sense of really kind of explaining why we're doing it," he said. "Everything is gonna have an A.I. fingerprint on it at some point. Ultimately, it's about preserving the digital fingerprint of my father. That's the core essence of it."
Ozzy's own view of the film never wavered. As Jack recalled: "I'd give him updates: 'Oh, we met with this guy', and 'this is happening'. And he just would go, 'I don't give a shit. Just tell me when it's out so I can go see it.'"