If you haven’t experienced the sheer, awe-inspiring joy that comes with reading “The Dirt: Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band,” or the story of Mötley Crüe and the band’s incredible road antics, you need to immediately bump it to the top of your reading list. The 2001 collection of stories from Vince Neil, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx and others is one of the most important books ever written by and about an American rock band, and as of last week, it is poised to become one of the most important movies ever made about a rock band.
Dirt will be directed by Jackass and Bad Grandpa director Jeff Tremaine, who told Deadline that this has been his dream project since the day that the book was released and MTV first optioned it.
“I’ve been careful to make this a natural progression,” Tremaine said. “I’ve been offered a lot of scripts but Dirt is something I pursued with everything I had. I’ve wanted to make this going back to 2001, when we were just planning the first Jackass movie and I found out that David Gale at MTV Films had just optioned the book. First of all, I had no idea how to make Jackass into a movie, but I said to him, let me direct that movie, too. He said, yeah, of course! He was being sarcastic, because he had the same level of confidence in me as a director as I did at that time. Luckily for me, the movie never got made, and when this project became available, I put everything I had into chasing it and convincing everyone that I am the right guy for it. I really feel I am.”
There are plenty of stories in Dirt that can be told for the sake of a good laugh – like one of the guys pleasuring his girlfriend under the table at a fine restaurant with an empty bottle of wine that they just pounded – while there are some that will make people loathe Mötley Crüe more than most people probably already do (there’s a rape story that made me want to toss the book in a fire). Either way, Tremaine has his hands full in telling one of the most outrageous, fascinating and vile stories of extravagance, chaos and complete childish bullshit ever told.
But at least the soundtrack can’t be ruined.