Entertainment: Green Day's American Idiot to Become a Movie!

This story is of particular interest to me, since Green Day happens to be be one of my favourite bands.

Universal has given the green light for American Idiot, the Broadway musical based on Green Day’s acclaimed album of the same name to be adapted into a full length feature film.

A concept album tackling the ideas of love vs. rage, "American Idiot" follows three characters: the aimless Jesus of Suburbia, punk rock freedom fighter St. Jimmy, and Whatsername. It was released in 2004 and quickly became one of the band's biggest albums. It also spawned Grammy Awards, as did the Broadway version.

The studio is in negotiations to pick up the screen rights and has set Michael Mayer, the director of the stage production, to helm the big-screen adaptation. It is also expected that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will be courted to play the role of St. Jimmy, a role which he performed many times on Broadway and will be performing the role once more as the production nears it's close on April 24th.

Oscar award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who wrote Milk, is in discussion to write the screenplay. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, who optioned the rights before Idiot began its Broadway run, will produce via their Playtone banner along with the band, Pat Magnarella and Tom Hulce.

Hanks and Goetzman were producers on the mega-smash "Mamma Mia!," the adaptation of the musical based on the ABBA songs. Universal was behind that musical, which got it on the hunt for other musical projects. Not all of them are created equal, however, and the studio recently put In the Heights into turnaround after it was deemed too pricey.

An American Idiot movie has been talked about since the album originally came out in 2004. Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt told us a while back that Armstrong himself has a vision for how he'd like to see it filmed: "Billie has full pictures in his head of each of these characters and, you know, their emotional turmoil and triumphs and every bit of what we believe should be the making of a good movie, and that is emotional investment."