Cast Highlights: Dakota Fanning

Character: Joan Jett
Production Status: Post-production
Release Date: To be announced 2010
Director: Floria Sigismondi
Writers: Floria Sigismondi
Genre: n/a
MPAA Rating: n/a

From the Photo Gallery:

Trailer:

Plot Outline:

Kristen Stewart is set to portray Joan Jett in The Runaways, the rock ‘n’ roll biopic of the 1970s all-girl band.

The Runaways were hugely influential as the first successful all-girl hard rock band; its members included guitarists Jett and Lita Ford, drummer Sandy West, singer-keyboardist Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox. The band was brought together in late 1975 by impresario Kim Fowley, who thought a novelty act of teenaged girls performing in leather and lace would be an easy sell, but the girls ended up proving to be serious and influential musicians with songs like “Cherry Bomb.” The band lasted about four years together, falling apart over management and money issues.

The film will revolve around Jett and Currie and follow them from the band’s meteoric rise as teenagers to their dissolution and disillusionment.

Kristen Stewart’s Role:

Kristen Stewart is playing Joan Jett.

Joan Jett (born Joan Marie Larkin September 22, 1958, in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania) is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and actress.

She is best known for her hit cover “I Love Rock N’ Roll”, which was #1 on the Billboard charts from March 20 to May 1, 1982, as well as for her other popular recordings including “Crimson and Clover”, “Do You Wanna Touch Me”, “Light of Day”, “Love is All Around”, “Bad Reputation,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” and “Little Liar.”

Jett has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her musical and song-writing approach is heavily influenced by the hard-edged, hard beat-driven rhythms common to many rock bands of her native Philadelphia, often featuring lyrics surrounding themes of lost love, criticisms of insincerity, the struggles and resolution of the American working class, and the quest for authenticity.

Joan Jett is one of the founding members of The Runaways along with drummer Sandy West. Micki Steele (who was later replaced) Jackie Fox, Lita Ford, and Cherie Currie completed the line-up. While Currie initially fronted the band, Jett also shared some lead vocals, played rhythm guitar and wrote or co-wrote a lot of the band’s material along with Ford, West and Currie. The band recorded five LPs, with one becoming one of the biggest-selling imports in U.S. and U.K. history. The band toured around the world and some of their opening acts included Cheap Trick, Van Halen and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They found huge success abroad, especially in Japan.

While The Runaways were popular in Europe, Japan, Asia, Australia, Canada and South America, they could not garner the same success in the U.S. After Currie and Fox left the band (to be replaced by bassist Vicki Blue and later, Laurie McAllister), the band released two more albums: Waitin’ for the Night and And Now… The Runaways. Altogether they produced five albums from 1975 until they disbanded in spring of 1979.

• If you would like to continue your research about Joan Jett, please refer to Wikipedia.

Kristen Stewart Quotes:

It’s so exciting that I can even talk about it now, because I haven’t been allowed to for a really long time.

It’s about the forming and death of this band [The Runaways], and it launched Joan Jett’s career and she became the icon for females in rock and roll.

It’s an absolutely insane concept for me to even think that I’m going to play her, but apparently I got the job so I’m going to give it all I’ve got.

Trivia & Facts

Filming in 2009 around Kristen’s commitments to the two Twilight sequels.

Joan Jett will be an executive producer.

External Links

• Official Website

• Internet Movie Database

• Photo Gallery

• Video clips