In January, The Roku Channel announced that former Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will portray Weird Al Yankovic in the upcoming biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Since then, it’s been one of The Roku Channel’s buzziest projects. While the film is still several months away, The Roku Channel has released the first teaser trailer. And the trailer kind of lulls you in with the suggestion that it might be a serious movie.
All of Weird Al’s accomplishments listed in the trailer are true. If we were going by the film’s description alone, we could almost believe that it would have some real dramatic moments. Yet the moment that Weird Al asks for an accordion, it turns into a Naked Gun-level farce and embraces the surreal humor of Yankovic’s film, UHF.
Rainn Wilson also stars in the film as Dr. Demento, with Julianne Nicholson as Mary Yankovic, Toby Huss as Nick Yankovic, and Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna. Eric Appel directed Weird: The Al Yankovic Story from a script that he co-wrote with Yankovic himself. It’s inspired by a parody video of the same name that Appel created for Funny or Die in 2010.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will premiere on The Roku Channel this fall. Beyond that, a specific date hasn’t been set.
So essentially a dark and gritty Weird Al Yankowic reboot?