'Weird Al' Yankovic Has Written His Next Movie
'Weird Al' Yankovic Has Written His Next Movie
Fresh off of the release of the singer’s latest polka medley single, get ready for the return of movie mania!
You’re not going to be waiting 33 years for ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s next movie…hopefully. The Grammy-winning parodist and songwriter has announced that he has finished writing it.
Yankovic posted to his socials, namely Bluesky and Threads that he “Just finished writing another movie.” This is of course coming off of his Emmy-winning 2022 biopic parody Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which he co-wrote with the film’s director Eric Appel, who also directed the original Funny or Die short the movie evolved from back when he worked there. Not so coincidentally, Appel quoted Yankovic with “Innnnnteresting. So did I. 🤔” so it definitely seems like another co-writing effort. The film’s narrator, Diedrich Bader, replied to Al with an emphatic “YES!”.
Weird was released on Roku in November 2022, and won Critics Choice Awards for movie and actor, plus the Producers Guild Award for movie. It won two of its eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Daniel Radcliffe as Al, Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Yankovic and Appel, Outstanding Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, Outstanding Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, winning for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Outstanding Television Movie. In addition to Radcliffe, the film starred Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, Toby Huss and Julianne Nicholson as Al’s parents, and features a slew of cameos highest-concentrated in a pool scene, with Al himself elsewhere as producer Tony Scotti.
Of course, Al’s first film was 1989’s UHF, which was distributed by Orion Pictures. It stars him as George Newman, who inherits a failing UHF TV station and programs it to much success, which gets the attention of angered rival stations. It also starred Michael Richards, Fran Drescher and Victoria Jackson. It did not do well at the box office but was still popular inside his fandom and out.
With such announcement made in such an offhanded way, it could be quite a while before even learning title, plot, or whether they stick with Roku for distribution. I remember when James Gunn tweeted about writing a third of an unannounced DC TV show that turned out to be Creature Commandos, as revealed just 26 days later in January 2023. So while we wait, Weird will still be on Roku, while at the risk of dating this article, UHF is streaming free on Tubi and Pluto TV.
He just keeps going...and going...and going....