Add \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic to the growing list of artists slighted by the higher-ups at Warner Bros.<\/p>\n
No, the parody musician didn’t have a streaming project caught up in the Discovery merger; his biopic \u201cWeird: The Al Yankovic Story\u201d debuted at TIFF in September and is distributed by The Roku Channel. Rather in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter promoting Eric Appel’s new film, Yankovic lamented one of the many properties he’s been denied the rights to parody because of a major movie studio. The cult? Harry Potter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever it was, about a decade or two ago, I approached the movie company just to get a general blessing like, ‘Hey, I’d like to do a Harry Potter parody,\u201d Yankovic recalled. \u201cAnd I think they said no, or they never responded or whatever\u2026 But sometimes when you’re dealing with franchises, and you ask permission, you know, there’s so many people that can say no, and they usually do.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s an ironic anecdote on (at least) two fronts. First, Harry Potter and its soundtrack have been parodied endlessly: appearing in everything from the YouTube sensation \u201cPotter Puppet Pals\u201d to Darren Criss and AJ Holmes’ stage production \u201cA Very Potter Musical.\u201d Potter parody is a supersaturated market now and, assuming Yankovic’s timeline is correct, wasn’t much less crowded back then.<\/p>\n Second, Daniel Radcliffe \u2014 Harry Potter himself<\/em> \u2014 would go on to play a heightened version of Yankovic in \u201cWeird: The Al Yankovic Story.\u201d The pair struck up a friendship during production with Yankovic helping Radcliffe extensively to prepare.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, the thing that we worked on the most together was the accordion,\u201d Radcliffe told IndieWire at TIFF. \u201cHe gave me some accordion lessons, which is something that I can take to my grave that I had that moment. I don’t need anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[Yankovic] is so authentically himself and that has led to this wonderful film, as well as his incredible career,\u201d Radcliffe continued. \u201cThis is not a movie that we expect you to sit down and take a morale from the story. But if there is something to it, it’s about leaning into your own weirdness and that being a way of finding your own happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s a message Yankovic echoed again in his interview with the Hollywood Reporter. \u201cIf I’m doing a franchise, it’s usually better just to do it and ask for forgiveness rather than permission,\u201d he continued, before joking: \u201cWe like to think that [\u2018Weird: The Al Yankovic Story\u2019] is the last movie of the Harry Potter franchise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe that’s what this movie is,\u201d Radcliffe said, also to the Hollywood Reporter. \u201cThis has been his way of doing a Harry Potter parody.\u201d<\/p>\nRelated<\/h3>\n<\/section>\n
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