Mark wahlberg rockstar8/17/2023 "Anything that celebrates rock 'n' roll is amazing," he says of the latest round of movies. And with a new era of biopics very much on the rise, perhaps that story will still be told. Owens says the biggest missed opportunity was to tell a rags-to-riches story that could only have taken place in real life because of the people involved. Everybody still thinks it's the story of Ripper, but it isn’t.” He noted the band was watching closely, just in case it could consider legal action. Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton countered that "this is the thing that’s sort of not very good for us. The word “generic” appears in a number of reviews the marketing boss even told MTV, “Ninety percent of the movie is based on pure rock-star mythology.” Robbed of the soul that made the idea so attractive in the first place, Rock Star was a box-office bomb, grossing just $19.3 million on a budget of $57 million. Watch Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens Perform With Judas Priest “No one was playing arenas – even AC/DC and Iron Maiden weren’t playing arenas at that time. “Bands like Judas Priest were playing in places like Bob’s Big Bamboo at the time,” he notes. ![]() For Owens, the soundtrack was one of the biggest disappointments: “It wasn’t the kind of music we did or I did.”Īlso disappointing was the movie’s focus on traditional “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” cliches, showing Steel Dragon living a life far detached from most heavy rock bands of the ‘90s. On paper, the musical talent looked relatively promising: Steel Dragon, the fictional band that replaced Priest in the story, included Zakk Wylde, Jeff Pilson and Jason Bonham. Owens objected to the fictional version of him being seen as a “stalker fan” of the band he loved, though he laughingly admits, “I was a stalker fan when I was in high school!” Plus, he chose to leave the band himself. Priest fans object to the depiction of the fictional Rob Halford as having been fired as a result of being gay, when, in fact, Halford’s sexuality was an open secret even before he came out in 1998. “There are people who just know me from Rock Star, and not even from Judas Priest. “Well, I was,” he allows, “but I always say this: I was the inspiration for somebody to make a movie – without murdering anybody!” He adds that he’s still asked to sign DVD covers, and it remains a topic of conversation for some fans. 7, 2001 – around the same time the infamous Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story hit TV screens. That’s more or less what he saw when Rock Star was released on Sept. The guys just wanted an accurate movie, not a Spinal Tap movie.” It’s a shame, because it could have been such a great movie. “They never said a bad word about Rob in the whole time I was with them, for example. “When I joined, they were young and spry, but the movie was trying to paint a different picture” Owens states. … You’re not painting an accurate portrait here.’ The movie people said, ‘You have no creative input,’ so the band pulled away and said, ‘You cannot use our name without telling an accurate story.'”Īmong those inaccuracies, Owens says, was an attempt to make the members of Priest appear older than they really were and to suggest more interpersonal issues between them and the departed Halford than really existed. The band said, ‘Look, we don’t like the angle of some of these things. “We were supposed to have music in the movie and everything,” he recalls. Owens' understanding is that communications between the band and the film company were positive at first. “The person that the movie was supposed to be about wasn’t involved in it at all,” he muses. ![]() ![]() But they’re not Judas Priest for nothing – they know what they’re doing.” That was almost the last interaction Owens had with Hollywood. “First of all, you think you’re going to get paid from it anyway,” he laughs, “and at that point in my career, I’d have taken $5,000. What did the rising star do with the information? He passed it on to Priest manager Jane Andrews, because he was part of a team. On the Monday I was on the golf course in my hometown, and my parents were calling me, saying, ‘There’s movie companies calling, interested in that story.’ Then they called again, saying, ‘Hey, George Clooney and Warner Bros. ![]() “It all started with an article in The New York Times, front page of the entertainment section,” Owens tells UCR. By the time Metal God – the true story of how Ripper Owens replaced his hero, Rob Halford – hit theaters, it was titled Rock Star and turned into a based-on rom-com featuring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, with no reference to Owens himself.
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