Pistol Trailer: Danny Boyle Tells The Story Of The Sex Pistols
The first trailer for FX's "Pistol" is here, and the Sex Pistols series looks like it's ready to cause mayhem. The 42-second promo gives viewers a close-up look at the anarchic musicians who took over the U.K. scene in the '70s, including Sid Vicious (Louis Partridge) and Nancy Spungen (Emma Appleton).
"We're gonna kick this country awake if it kills us," one of the bandmates declares in the promo's first seconds, while another asserts that "the monarchy has stolen our future." Statements like that continue through the rest of the spot, with someone (maybe Maisie Williams' Jordan) calling for "youth revolution," someone else threatening to burn the city to the ground, and a third offscreen voice calling for not musicians, but "saboteurs, assassins." The promo uses choppy editing, neon, collage-like graphics, and a 4:3 aspect ratio to bring the jagged, lo-fi spirit of the era alive.
Punk never dies
Overall, the promo for "Pistol" seems to either be having a laugh at the moral panic surrounding the punk movement or genuinely playing into it. Whether or not the show succeeds will depend in part on the tone of the final product. At this point, it looks a bit overwrought, but wasn't drama and edginess that bordered on ridiculous part of the point of the Sex Pistols?
Indeed, some drama has played out behind the scenes of the show too. Rolling Stone reports that former bandmates John Lydon, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook have all publicly shared thoughts on the show after Cook and Jones beat out Lydon in court to gain the rights to license the band's music for "Pistol." Jones is an executive producer on the series.
The series is based on the book "Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol," by drummer Jones. If its hope is to chronicle the rise and fall of the band, which infamously includes Spungen's murder and Vicious' heroin overdose, then maybe what we're seeing here is just a taste of the early days. An initial synopsis for the show stated it plans to follow the band from its inception at least up to the controversial release of "Never Mind the Bollocks."
If "Pistol" does pull off the tricky task of telling the Sex Pistols' story right, it'll be because of the talented people involved. "Trainspotting" filmmaker Danny Boyle is directing all six episodes of the series, while the cast includes "Game of Thrones" star Williams–seen in the promo with a shock of white hair styled high–and "Babyteeth" breakout star Toby Wallace, among others.
All six episodes of FX's "Pistol" will stream on Hulu on May 31, 2022.
Pistol is a six-episode limited series about a rock and roll revolution. The furious, raging storm at the center of this revolution are the Sex Pistols – and at the center of this series is Sex Pistols' founding member and guitarist, Steve Jones. Jones' hilarious, emotional and at times heart-breaking journey guides us through a kaleidoscopic telling of three of the most epic, chaotic and mucus-spattered years in the history of music. Based on Jones' memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, this is the story of a band of spotty, noisy, working-class kids with "no future," who shook the boring, corrupt Establishment to its core, threatened to bring down the government and changed music and culture forever.