“American Epic” director Bernard MacMahon has revealed the title of his long-awaited and recently completed Led Zeppelin feature documentary: “Becoming Led Zeppelin.”
The project, which was first announced in 2019, has unprecedented access to the band, marking the first and only time the group has participated in a documentary in 50 years. Though 1976 doc “The Song Remains the Same” centred on the band, that was largely a concert film of a series of Madison Square Garden performances in 1973.
“’Becoming Led Zeppelin’ is a film that no one thought could be made,” said MacMahon. “The band’s meteoric rise to stardom was swift and virtually undocumented. Through an intense search across the globe and years of restoration of the visual and audio archive found, this story is finally able to be told.”
A release date hasn’t yet been set for the pic. Altitude Film Sales and Submarine Entertainment will be co-repping sales.
The film includes new interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, as well as rare archival interviews with the late John Bonham, who died in 1980. The film features never-before-seen archive film and photographs, state-of-the-art audio transfers of the band’s music and the music of other artists who shaped their sound.
When the project was first announced, Page said: “When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is ‘American Epic,’ I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”
First formed in London in 1968, the English rock band is best known for hits including “Stairway to Heaven,” “Good Times Bad Times” and “The Immigrant Song,” and are considered one of the most influential rock bands in history.