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Grateful Dead Productions and Jerry Garcia Family LLC: Two Thumbs Down on Garcia Film

Just over a week ago week we reported on the proposed Jerry Garcia biopic. Amir Bar-Lev, director of the documentaries My Kid Could Paint That and The Tillman Story has signed on for the project written by Topper Lilien (whose last credited film was, ahem, Dungeons & Dragons in 2000). The script is said to be based on Robert Greenfield’s Dark Star an oral-history of the guitarist. Grateful Dead Productions and Jerry Garcia Family LLC have now weighed in with two thumbs down on the film.

The two organizations have released a joint statement which reads, “We want to make clear that neither Grateful Dead Productions nor the Jerry Garcia Family LLC are in any way working with — or are in any other way affiliated with — the supposed upcoming Amir Bar-Lev-directed biopic about Jerry Garcia. Furthermore, we will not be licensing any recordings from Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia’s music library for this production nor will we provide the producer/director with access to any Garcia family members.”

The film as announced was to focus on the years before Garcia joined the Dead (perhaps in anticipation of such a problem) and the filmmakers acquired the rights to Greenfield’s book, so the cameras still may roll, it will just be all the more challenging.