When Billie Joe Armstrong Asks You to Make a Green Day Movie, You Don’t Say No — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "Nimrods" is Lee Kirk's new film opening August 14, conceived by Billie Joe Armstrong, starring Green Day's three members as themselves in a fictional teen road-trip comedy
- Armstrong pitched the New Year's Eve concept to Kirk after rewatching Risa Bramon Garcia's 1999 ensemble comedy "200 Cigarettes"; the two previously collaborated on Kirk's 2016 film "Ordinary World"
- Kirk wrote roughly 80 percent of the film's song choices into the script, mixing hits with deep cuts and filling the mise-en-scène with analog touches like tape recorders and pay phones
- Mason Thames stars as the leader of three teens who drive cross-country after a prank call invites them to open for Green Day at the Hollywood Palladium on New Year's Eve
- The production assembled thousands of fans as extras for a near-full Green Day set at the Hollywood Palladium, a venue the band has played since opening for Bad Religion there in 1993
- The road-trip antics draw from real early touring experiences of Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool, making the movie part biopic, part concert film, and part road-trip comedy
Why it matters: For Green Day, "Nimrods" doubles as a multi-generational fan recruitment tool — Kirk explicitly wants the film to inspire kids to ask their parents for a guitar — and gives the band a theatrical vehicle beyond the standard concert-doc formula, with real fans getting a free intimate show at a venue tied to their 1990s history.
Ask SkimNews
