The Ben Stiller/Rolling Stones comedy that almost was: “This will never happen again”
The Rolling Stones have long had a deep connection to the film industry, from Mick Jagger starring in Performance back in 1970 to Martin Scorsese using them as the background to some of his most iconic scenes. But does that mean they’re ready to star in a Ben Stiller comedy? Not so much.
Although, to be fair, that seemingly far-fetched situation actually wasn’t all that far off, because back in the early 1990s, when the Stones were hitting the road to promote their 1994 album Voodoo Lounge, the idea of a kind of mockumentary about the band, Spinal Tap-style, was mooted, with a young Ben Stiller and Judd Apatow in the mix to make it happen.
Even back then, the Stones were in their early 50s, so they’d seen and done it all, while Stiller and Apatow were at the other end of the scale. The pair had co-created The Ben Stiller Show for MTV, a kind of zany sketch show that ran for a couple of years before Apatow moved on to write The Larry Sanders Show sitcom, where he would go on to win six Emmy nominations.
Stiller, meanwhile, was starting his acting career, as well as directing the 1994 Ethan Hawke movie Reality Bites. So the pair were certainly hot property in the industry at the time, which no doubt resulted in their being names to consider when the film was being discussed.
In fact, Apatow confirmed to Pitchfork, “Many years ago, Ben Stiller and I wrote a movie for The Rolling Stones. They wanted to do a concert film where there was a storyline going on in between the songs, so Ben and I wrote a script. We had to pitch the movie to all of the Rolling Stones, so they could decide whether they wanted to do it or not. Can you imagine something more terrifying than looking Keith Richards in the eye and pitching a movie that goofed on his band? But they approved the idea.”
That would indeed be a terrifying proposition, as both Richards and Jagger are well known to be fiercely protective of the Stones as not just a band but a brand, and while they’re known for their sense of humour, it remains to be seen how well a parody film would have gone down.
Apatow added, “At the time, they were rehearsing…and they told us we could watch. So Ben and I got to watch them rehearse for several hours. We were the only people there, and we were literally eight feet from them. The best moment of my life as a rock fan was when Mick Jagger walked over to Ben and I, and said, ‘You guys OK? Can I get you a glass of water?’ I turned around and said, ‘Never forget this moment, this will never happen again’.”
While Stiller and Apatow’s admittedly quite good-sounding Stones movie sadly never happened, it’s not like film fans can’t get a glimpse at the working practices of Dartford’s finest rock group on the big screen. As far back as 1968, Jean-Luc Godard made the part-in-studio, part-very pretentious ‘60s art nonsense movie Sympathy for the Devil, which is notable for not just showing how the Stones recorded the title track, but also how completely out of his tree Brian Jones was by that point.
Scorsese himself also made his own documentary on the band, 2008’s Shine a Light, which he filmed over a two-day period in New York, featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the Stones as they performed at the Beacon Theatre, plus live performances.
