The Christopher Walken Ozzy Osbourne Performance We'll Never Get To See
Long before he landed the role of Burt Goodman in Apple TV's "Severance" and signed on to go head-to-head against Timothee Chalamet as Emperor Shaddam IV in "Dune: Part Two," Christopher Walken nearly ventured into the land of biopics for Larry Charles's "The Dirt."
In 2006, Charles, director of "Borat" and "The Dictator," began working on his next project. "The Dirt" would be a biopic detailing the chaotic rising of Mötley Crüe, adapting the band's collaborative autobiography "The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band." The story would have included everything from copious amounts of alcohol and drugs to sex, car crashes, and many jail cells.
While Mötley Crüe member Tommy Lee got the star treatment recently with Sebastian Stan playing the drummer in Hulu's "Pam & Tommy," "The Dirt" would have taken a different direction with the rockers' casting. Charles planned to cast unknown actors in the lead roles, diverting from the usual star-studded method of most biopics. However, that's not to say "The Dirt" wouldn't have had its fair share of stars, but the director would relegate them to cameos instead. According to Uncut's report from 2006, Charles planned to have numerous movie stars appear as other rock stars, including Val Kilmer as Van Halen's David Lee Roth and the unbelievable casting of Christopher Walken as Ozzy Osbourne.
Christopher Walken as Ozzy Osbourne was inspired casting
In 2006, Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil announced that Christopher Walken had signed on to appear in Larry Charles's "The Dirt" as rock legend Ozzy Osbourne (via Uncut). Even then, Neil understood how incredible the casting was, saying, "How funny is that going to be?!" To make it even worse that audiences never got to see Walken in the role, the book version of "The Dirt" features Osbourne touring with the band, snorting a line of ants, and taking LSD daily along the way. Charles planned for "The Dirt" to have an NC-17 rating, so Walken would have had the opportunity to go all-out in the role.
Unfortunately, Charles thinks the NC-17 rating was the downfall of the biopic. In 2008, a few years after the movie's initial announcement, the director said there was no way he could remain faithful to the story without keeping it unrated. "Mötley Crüe is a crappy band but [Neil Strauss] wrote a really epic book about them. It's really fascinating. What's good about it is how hardcore it is. They killed people, they've hurt people, they've crippled people, they've done all kinds of crazy things. You'd have to show that for real and I think there was a little bit of reticence about doing that ultimately" (via /Film).
He continued by saying he would only make the film if he could make it his way. If not, the studio would have to find someone else to lead the project. In 2019, "The Dirt" finally made its film debut, with Jeff Tremaine ("Jackass") directing the movie for Netflix. Tony Cavalero ("The Righteous Gemstones") portrayed Osbourne, but the movie received negative reviews, leaving fans wondering what Charles and Walken could've made of the film.