Biopic Director Claps Back: Billy Joel Film Moving Forward Without Piano Man's Blessing

A filmmaker isn’t backing down from his vision of young Billy Joel’s rise—even as the Piano Man’s camp fires warning shots across the bow.

Director John Ottman, the Oscar-winning architect behind the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, is pushing hard on the gas pedal for Billy and Me, a forthcoming unauthorized film about Joel’s formative years. The catch? Billy Joel hasn’t given his blessing, and his representatives have been crystal clear about it: they say the project is legally and professionally misguided and that the filmmakers don’t have the rights to Joel’s music or life story.

But here’s where Ottman’s counterargument gets interesting. The film isn’t actually about the Billy Joel you know—the one who wrote Uptown Girl and Piano Man. It’s about the struggling kid in The Hassles, a cover band where Joel was performing under the radar, still figuring out who he was as an artist. That narrow focus, Ottman argues, means the movie doesn’t need Joel’s iconic catalog to tell its story. It’s a period piece about hunger and discovery, not a greatest-hits showcase.

What gives the project legitimacy, at least from Ottman’s perspective, is the involvement of people who lived it. Irwin Mazur, Joel’s first manager who discovered him way back in 1966, has signed over his life rights to the production. More significantly, Jon Small—Billy’s lifelong best friend and original drummer from The Hassles—is actively involved and has personally consulted on the screenplay as someone who experienced those formative events firsthand. Both men have handed over the rights to their own stories.

Ottman’s final word carries the weight of respect without capitulation: We have tremendous respect for Billy Joel and his legacy, and have worked hard to tell an honest, heartfelt story surrounding the young artist before the world knew his name. Filming is set to begin next year in Winnipeg and New York.

The real question hanging over this whole standoff isn’t about legality—it’s about whether you can tell the story of someone’s past without their permission when other people who lived it are willing to share theirs. That’s a philosophical and ethical line that Hollywood keeps redrawing.