Released in 2004 during the United States’ ongoing invasion of Iraq, Green Day’s American Idiot was sort of a hot take before hot takes were a thing. It took the experience of being an angsty kid in the suburbs who is suddenly realizing that the world is kind of fucked up and transformed it into a pop-punk rock opera about people with names like Jesus Of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatshername. In 2010, a stage adaptation of American Idiot opened on Broadway, featuring all of the songs from the album plus some from Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown and original songs created for the musical. Plus, every show would end with “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life),” because you might as well go all the way when you’re staging a Green Day musical.
Against all odds, the American Idiot show turned out to be a big hit, prompting people to wonder when Green Day’s corny anti-establishment record would get further diluted into a dramatic, crowd-pleasing feature film. For years, various people tried to get an American Idiot movie off the ground, and now HBO has reportedly picked up the project and given it the proverbial green light. That’s according to Green Day’s own Billie Joe Armstrong, who told NME that the script is “currently going through a couple of rewrites” and that he’s not sure when they’ll start shooting, but “it’s definitely all systems go at the moment.”
The NME story also says that Armstrong plans to reprise the role of St. Jimmy, which he played intermittently during the Broadway run. Also, as noticed by MTV, Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda is very excited about this:
We know Miranda’s got talent, but is he talented enough to sing “Good Riddance” during the movie’s end credits? Because somebody’s going to have to do that.