Last year I wrote an article about Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ on the big screen as Tom Hanks, through his Playtone production company (‘Cast Away’ & ‘Mamma Mia’), purchased the rights to the Green Day’s rock opera which closes on Broadway on April 24, and goes on tour in the autumn.

The show uses all the tracks from the 2004 American Idiot album (plus some b-sides and some borrowed numbers from 21st Century Breakdown) to spin a tale of three friends…  finding individual ways to cope with their tension… One joins the army, one gets a girl pregnant and gets addicted to TV, and one, Johnny, turns to heroin and thinks he’s the Jesus of Suburbia. The show won two Tony awards and a Grammy for the cast album. Source

Well Deadline reports that Universal Pictures are in talks to make the musical in a feature film with Dustin Lance Black (‘Milk’ & forthcoming ‘J.Edgar’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio) writing the script and Michael Mayer, who directed the stage adaptation to direct again.

Johnny’s drug alter-ego St Jimmy was sometimes played onstage by Green Day’s own Billy Joe Armstrong. But it’s Armstrong that’s expected to portray St Jimmy onscreen.

So do you think ‘American Idiot’ will do as well as apparent inspiration, ‘Mamma Mia’? Do the songs mean as much to a general audience or is the audience that this film will be aimed at, a more specific audience who already know the album?