New pictures from Runaways biopic

[Paul Martin]

New pictures from the biopic of 70s all-girl rock group The Runaways (cunningly entitled... The Runaways) have appeared on JustJared, offering the first look at War of the Worlds actress Dakota Fanning in full costume as lead singer Cherrie Currie. 

With Fanning as Currie, her fellow New Moon star Kristin Stewart as guitarist Joan Jett (also pictured), and Halloween remake actress Scout Taylor-Compton as t’other guitarist Lita Ford, The Runaways is the first feature from music video director Floria Sigismondi, who has also penned the movie’s screenplay.

Set for release in 2010, the movie will chart the short-lived success of the band and the hard-partying lifestyle that was a contractual obligation for all popular musicians back in the day, but which has been replaced by yoga, tweeting and going round Elton John's for a bovril in the twenty-first century.     

The Runaways were a bit before my time (although I seem to recall my brother having an er, imposing poster of Lita Ford on his bedroom door at some point in the 1980s), which makes it tricky for me to judge the quality of the likenesses between the actresses and their real-life counterparts. However rock biopics are not easy to get right, often leaning towards stately tedium (Ray) or risible ridiculousness (the David Bowie-derived Velvet Goldmine).

Because singers and musicians lead their lives in the public eye, the movies about them often play like a procession of dress-up scenes, simply somnambulating through staged versions of already well-documented incidents. Coupled with the inherent absence of spontaneity which makes live music worth bothering with at all, the hurdles for film-makers who dip their toes into this area are many and varied. But can The Runaways buck this trend? Well, in the immortal words of Sir Cliff Richard “Maybe. But if it does happen I’m going to knock all this God-stuff right on the head.”