Overview
- Producers announced a feature titled Billy & Me this week that would dramatize Joel’s pre-fame years through his first manager Irwin Mazur and name John Ottman as director.
- Billy Joel’s representatives told outlets that since 2021 they notified the filmmakers they do not have Joel’s life rights and will not permit use of his original music.
- Filmmakers respond that they hold exclusive life-rights for Mazur and for Jon Small, that Small is advising and endorsing the script, and that the film was conceived as an origin story not built around Joel’s catalog.
- Casting is reported to be under way with a planned fall shoot in Winnipeg and New York, but the lack of Joel’s authorization and music rights remains an unresolved legal and creative hurdle for production.
- Life-right deals let producers dramatize the perspectives of witnesses, yet music rights are typically required to use an artist’s hits, so the project could proceed only with covers or without Joel’s songs and still face possible legal challenges.