Shaun Ryder gives update on his movie biopic Twisting My Melon
It's been in the works since 2013
Shaun Ryder has explained why his long awaited movie biopic Twisting My Melon is yet to see the light of day.
Way back in 2013, it was first announced that plans were afoot to turn the Happy Mondays, Black Grape and Mantra of the Cosmos vocalist’s 2011 autobiography Twisting My Melon into a film.
Six years later, Skins actor Jack O’Connell was announced as the lead actor with Matt Greenhalgh directing and writing the script.
Greenhalgh also wrote the script for the Ian Curtis biopic Control, John Lennon‘s origin story Nowhere Boy, and the upcoming Amy Winehouse movie Back to Black.
Filming was due to commence in 2020, however work on Twisting My Melon has ground to a juddering halt.
Explaining why it’s yet to be made, Shaun Ryder told Classic Pop magazine that the film’s American funders pulled the plug over its creative direction.
“Matt Greenhalgh wrote the script and was gonna direct,” Ryder explained.
“So we got the money, half-English, half-American and Matt fell out with the Americans. They didn’t want to make the film that Matt wanted to make. They wanted to make a film like all those other biopics, so it had to have a certain bit of this and a certain bit of that. So the American money went and it all went (messed) up really.
“Matt’s still working on getting it made, so that’s where he is now. At the moment, he’s just looking for another lot of backers.”
Twisting My Melon takes its name from Ryder’s famous line in Happy Mondays’ ‘Step On’, a cover of the 1971 John Kongos track ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again.’
Happy Mondays embark on a mammoth 15-date UK tour in March and April 2024 with special guests Inspiral Carpets and Stereo MCs.