David Bowie set to be played by Johnny Flynn in new biopic

David Bowie is set to be played by musician and actor Johnny Flynn in a new biopic of the star.

The film, which is called ‘Stardust’, charts Bowie’s fateful trip to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, where he gained inspiration for his Ziggy Stardust alter ego.

Stardust is due to begin filming this June and will also star Jena Malone as Bowie’s wife, Angie. It will be directed by Emmy winner Gabriel Range from a script by The Last Czars writer Christopher Bell.

Strangely though, the film might not feature any of Bowie’s actual music, with the musician’s son, the film director Duncan Jones, revealing that the film has not been given the rights to use his songs.

“Pretty certain nobody has been granted music rights for ANY biopic… I would know,” he wrote on Twitter.

“I’m not saying this movie is not happening. I honestly wouldn’t know. I’m saying that as it stands, this movie won’t have any of dads music in it, & I can’t imagine that changing.

“If you want to see a biopic without his music or the families blessing, that’s up to the audience.”

Meanwhile, Duncan admitted that that his perspective would be “too uniquely subjective” to make a film about his father and instead suggested that he’d be more interested in a movie scripted by fantasy writer Neil Gaiman and directed by Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’s Peter Ramsey.

“If @neilhimself [Gaiman] wanted to write something using dad’s characters, and @pramsey342 and his team wanted to make it as an animated film, I would urge everyone on my end to pay attention and give the pitch serious consideration,” he tweeted.