Following almost certainly untrue rumours that One Direction’s Harry Styles was being lined up for a solo career, now it’s being rumoured that the boy band singer is being considered for the role of Mick Jagger in a new movie about the strained relationship between the Rolling Stones frontman and his bandmate and creative collaborator Keith Richards. Styles is seemingly being considered for the Stones biopic because he and Mick have similar haircuts, which would certainly save on the wigs budget.

Says a source to The People: “Harry on stage can pass as a dead ringer for Jagger. If he can transform this image into a movie role then he’s going to be a serious candidate to get the part. The signs are so far good”.

Of course a gruelling movie schedule could play havoc with any touring or recording plans over in the One Direction camp, which said source acknowledged: “The film is going to be a lot of work and very demanding. If Harry takes the part it will lead to concerns about his involvement with One Direction. The band is his main priority but it is flattering to have so much interest from such senior people in the film industry – he couldn’t miss this opportunity”.

So, there you go. Elsewhere in Styles news, he’s apparently now dating Emma Atack, who played Charlotte Hinchcliffe in ‘The Inbetweeners’. According to Metro, when One Direction first rose to fame on ‘X-Factor’, Atack said on Twitter: “Does Harry from One Direction HAVE to be sixteen?! Let’s pretend he’s eighteen at least! Then there would only be One Direction he would be going… to the bedroom!”

That twice previously reported Jimi Hendrix biopic – ie the one starring Outkast MC Andre 3000 – is definitely being made, despite speculation that the Hendrix Estate was opposed to the project. Said Estate confirmed it was not involved in any biopic last week, adding that that would stop any unapproved project from using the legendary guitarist’s music, which the Estate controls.

But director John Ridley, who has already cast part-time actor Andre Benjamin to the lead role, says he will begin filming his Hendrix movie in Ireland later this month, deriving part of his original screenplay from archived live and interview footage.

A statement from Hendrix’s estate – which doesn’t rule out the potential for a Hendrix-scored Hendrix film in the future – says: “Experience Hendrix CEO Janie Hendrix, sister of Jimi Hendrix, and the EH board have not ruled out a ‘biopic’ in the future. Though producing partners would, out of necessity, have to involve the company from the inception of any such film project if it is to include original Jimi Hendrix music or compositions”.

Earlier this week it was reported that Outkast’s Andre 3000 had been confirmed to play Jimi Hendrix in director John Ridley’s brand new biopic ‘All Is By My Side’. However, there was speculation about the level of involvement the Jimi Hendrix estate was to have in the project. Well, it seems that the Jimi Hendrix estate will have no involvement in it and as far as it’s concerned there’s no project in which to be involved. So there.

In a statement issued to Billboard, the estate says: “Experience Hendrix, LLC, the family-owned company entrusted with safeguarding the legacy of Jimi Hendrix and administrator of the Jimi Hendrix music and publishing catalog has made it known many times in the past that no such film, were it to include original music or copyrights created by Jimi Hendrix, can be undertaken without its full participation”.

So that’s fun.

Outkast rapper André 3000, aka André Benjamin, will play Jimi Hendrix in director John Ridley’s brand new biopic ‘All Is By My Side’, it has been announced.

There were doubts that the rock guitarist’s estate would permit the film – which is based on the time Hendrix spent writing ‘Are You Experienced?’ in England circa 1966 – to be made, it having blocked a number of past proposals. That said, the estate’s OK is only really required if Hendrix recordings are needed for the soundtrack, so it’s possible Ridley’s version just features other music. Or perhaps Hendrix’s family members just liked his pitch. Currently in the pre-production stages, filming for ‘By My Side’ is expected begin in Ireland later this month.

Acting aside, Benjamin is also rumoured to be working on a solo LP. And he told GQ earlier this year: “This year I think I’m planning to do a solo project. I don’t know when it will come out, but hopefully it’ll come out this year. As far as [new] Outkast [is concerned], I really don’t know if or when that will happen”.

Having just appeared in a movie based on a popular board game, ‘Battleship’, Rihanna is now set to play a role in something even classier. According to The Sun, the singer has been cast in the 700th (OK, fifth) sequel to ‘The Fast And The Furious’.

A source told the tabloid: “Rihanna impressed with her acting debut in ‘Battleship’. [The] writers think she’ll be perfect for the role. Her character has plenty of bite and doesn’t take any prisoners – just like her in real life. It’s a step up the ladder for her and could lead to bigger action roles”.

Apparently due to begin filming next month, it is reported that the movie will be set in the UK and mostly filmed in London and Southend.

Full footage of The Beatles’ first gig in the US is to be screened as part of a new documentary about the show, ‘The Beatles: The Lost Concert’.

Filmed at The Washington Coliseum in 1964, the twelve song, 30 minute set was originally recorded to be shown in cinemas, viewed by around two million Americans in March the same year. The footage was then lost, but was recently rediscovered and remastered by Screenvision, the company which has produced the new documentary.

The film will be premiered at the Ziegfield Theater in New York on 6 May, and will be screened in cinemas across America from 17-22 May. No word yet on a UK release.

Asian Dub Foundation will soundtrack London and Paris-based screenings of Mathieu Kassovitz’s cult 1995 film, ‘La Haine’, as a pertinent means of marking the two capitals’ respective forthcoming mayoral and presidential elections. In fact, the movie will play on the very eve of said votes.

In London, one aim of the venture is to engage the community at the heart of the ‘La Haine’-esque urban violence that broke out during last summer’s riots, and as such the chosen site for a free locals-only screening on 2 May is the Broadwater Farm Centre in Tottenham.

Londoners at large will have a second viewing opportunity after the mayoral vote at The Troxy in Limehouse on 4 May, while residents of the film’s on-screen setting will have their chance at the live-scored version’s Parisian premiere on 5 May.

Find further details and ticket links here.

Organisers of this year’s East End Film Festival, which runs at various London venues from 3-8 Jul, have announced that the event will open with the British premiere of director Maurice Linnane’s Amy Winehouse documentary, ‘Arena: Amy Winehouse’.

The film, which centres on the late singer’s admiration for her soul/jazz predecessors – not least Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles – features rarely-seen concert and archive footage. It will be screened at St Anne’s Church in Limehouse during an evening of live music and “special guests”.

More info here.

A new documentary called ‘Mission To Lars’ is to receive a limited release through Picturehouse cinemas in the UK this June. The film follows journalist Kate Spicer as she tries to help her brother Tom, who is diagnosed with Fragile X Syndrome, a form of autism, to achieve his lifelong goal of meeting Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. The film sees the pair travel from the care home in Exmouth, Devon where Tom lives on a road trip through America in search of the musician.

Says Kate: “We had this fantasy of hitting the road with Tom and recreating some of the magic of our teenage years cruising around in £100 cars, eating Burger King and listening to heavy metal on the tape deck. We thought it would be fun, bonding. We wanted to do something good for our brother. We were also sick of him endlessly asking”.

All profits from the film will be donated to Mencap, and the soundtrack features contributions donated to the project by artists including Bob Dylan, Devendra Banhart and Blur, plus an original score written by Mike Lindsay from Tunng.

Watch the trailer for the film here:

Status Quo are currently filming their debut movie, described as “a 90 minute action caper”, in Fiji. Really. Entitled ‘Bula Quo!’, it’s scheduled for release next year and will also feature twelve new songs by the band. Direction is being handled by Stuart St Paul, who mainly works as a stunt coordinator but does also have a number of feature films (and a few music videos) under his belt too.

Frontman Francis Rossi told Press Association: “The one thing Quo fans know is to expect the unexpected. Of course, Rick [Parfitt] and I have already acted in Coronation Street, one of the biggest TV shows on the planet, so this should be no trouble at all – according to management”.

Parfitt added: “Once I found out that we weren’t going to be shooting anywhere cold, I was all for it”.

Fightstar members Dan Haigh and Alex Westaway marked Friday the thirteenth last week by uploading a trailer to their new “psychological horror film” ‘In God We Trust’ onto YouTube.

The movie, which stars bandmate Charlie Simpson, was made for a tiny £1200, seemingly relying on the band’s own musical and CGI skills to keep costs so low. Though it’s possible the homemade film is really a public pitch to get bigger funding for their movie ambitions. You can decide whether you’d invest your own money (in a cinema ticket or multi-million pound film budget) by watching the trailer here. We have no comment to make.

This has been a very long time coming, but the musical based on Son Of Dork’s ‘Welcome To Loserville’ album, co-written by the band’s frontman James Bourne and playwright Elliot Davis, is due to open in June.

Son Of Dork, of course (OF COURSE), was the band formed by Bourne after Busted split in 2005. The short-lived outfit only released two singles (two top ten singles, mind) and that one album before going on hiatus in 2007 and eventually splitting the following year. Since then Bourne has been working on the ‘Loserville’ musical.

Set in 1971, it follows “computer geek” Michael Dork who has invented “something that could change the world” but is distracted by his love for a girl called Holly. Holly wants to be the first woman in space but is distracted by Michael’s attempts to woo her. It’s a classic tale.

The show received its world premiere in Bracknell in 2009, where it played for two nights at the South Hill Park Arts Centre. In June and July this year, it will enjoy a month-long run at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds before its inevitable transfer to the West End. Seriously people, isn’t it about time ‘We Will Rock You’ was shunted out of the Dominion? I mean, that’s a load of old rubbish and ‘Loserville’ is clearly going to be awesome.

More information on the West Yorkshire Playhouse run can be found here, and you can watch a preview of the original 2009 version of the show below.

By the way, and despite the tone of this piece, which you might have taken to be somewhat sarcastic, I would genuinely like to see ‘Loserville’ and I do genuinely think that ‘We Will Rock You’ is a load of old rubbish. So there.

A new West End show will open in London later this year featuring songs by The Beatles to mark the 50th anniversary of the release of their first ever single ‘Love Me Do’.

The first time a West End show has been given permission to use Beatles-composed songs, ‘Let It Be’ will tell the story of the Fab Four’s rise to fame with video clips and live performances of songs like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Day Tripper’, ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

The show is being devised by a company called Rain Productions, which previously turned its Beatles tribute act into a Broadway show. The new West End musical will open on 14 Sep and run for four months.

It’s always absolute Odd Future mania here at CMU HQ, but this week has been made especially maniacal by the virtue of some UK dates coinciding with the premiere of OF’s new ‘reality’ TV show ‘Loiter Squad’. Hurrah.

Produced by ‘Jackass’ creators Dickhouse Entertainment (yes, really), the show comprises a mix of skits, sketches, pranks (plus the occasional live performance), and is available for UK viewers to screen via its American broadcasters Adult Swim.

So if you fancy watching a be-wigged Tyler, The Creator and friends hitting each other with bin lids, and other such stunts, look below to find the first of what may be many ‘Loiter Squad’ episodes.

As previously reported, Odd Future’s UK tour starts today in Birmingham, continuing on to London’s Brixton Academy tomorrow. Speaking of London, as of today the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane will be flogging OFGWKTA merchandise at a short-term pop-up shop, this exclusive sample sale ending on 2 Apr.

Neon Indian, aka producer Alan Polomo, has booked a live date at London’s Village Underground on 6 Jun, thereby marking the release of new single ‘Hex Girlfriend’ via Transgressive on 28 May.

The Twin Shadow remix of said track – as is taken from Neon Indian’s 2011 album ‘Era Extrana’ – will be issued in lime-green vinyl format on Record Store Day. Stream the remix here:

Polomo is also one of several acts billed to appear in a forthcoming movie from critically acclaimed ‘Tree Of Life’ director Terence Malick, who was present at this year’s SxSW to film scenes his latest project. Live footage of Arcade Fire and Fleet Foxes will also feature in ‘Lawless’, a thriller centring on “two intersecting love triangles, sexual obsession and betrayal, set against the music scene in Austin, Texas”. It stars Christian Bale and ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ actress Roony Mara, and is set to premiere in 2013.

During a recent residency at Artangel’s South Bank situated ‘boat-hotel on a roof’ installation, ‘A Room For London’, Talking Heads auteur David Byrne found space and time to create an audio collage of sounds he recorded on location at various London landmarks. The result is ‘Get It Away’, a ‘soundwork’ set to a beat to suit the city’s natural tempo, which Byrne gauges to be 122.86bpm.

He says: “I went out during the day and recorded sounds that I thought might be useful and evocative. It turned out that most of the sounds – even the church organ in Southwark Cathedral – seemed to converge around a common rhythm. It’s a bit too good to be true – that every large city should have it’s own rhythm, but here it is. I let the sounds dictate the groove, the tempo, and then I simply played along”.

And you needn’t wait to sample said sounds, because here’s ‘Get It Away’, now:

Having made a plea for investors to help him make a third series of his soap hip hopera ‘Trapped In The Closet’, R Kelly has announced that another batch of episodes is on the way.

Says Kelly: “When I first began experiencing the unknown journey of writing ‘Trapped In The Closet’, I knew after the first chapter that I had tapped into something that was not of this earth. Being the nosey person that I am, I more than anyone wanted to know what the second chapter would be. And now here we are at chapter 23, trapped in the million dollar question – what the hell is the package? Well, ladies and gentlemen, not only am I ready to reveal what the package is, but I have many more chapters to share”.

Here’s a little trailer to whet your appetite:

Having released the album version of his original indie rock opera ‘Dinosaur Planet’ last year, MJ Hibbett is experimenting with something different for the follow-up, ‘Moon Horse Vs The Mars Men Of Jupiter’.

A specially adapted version of the show will be released in four parts as podcasts over the next few weeks, with episodes one and two going live yesterday. After that, they will be grouped together as a pay-what-you-want download.

More information on the show is available here and you can listen to episodes one and two of the series here:

Boy George, US rapper Wale and Jonny Pierce of The Drums will appear in Mark Ronson’s previously reported collaboration with the Royal Ballet School, it’s been announced.

The contemporary ballet, entitled ‘Carbon Life’, will comprise nine love songs co-composed by Ronson and Miike Snow’s Andrew Wyatt, with orchestration courtesy of Rufus Wainwright.

Boy George and Pierce – who wrote two tracks for Ronson’s 2010 LP ‘Record Collection’ – will perform as part of an on-stage cast that also includes The Kills’ Alison Mosshart, alt-pop soloist Hero Fisher and American MC Black Cobain.

Mark Ronson and Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor will discuss the production, which premieres on 5 Apr at The Royal Opera House, during a live-streamed broadcast taking place on Friday.

The Rolling Stones aren’t going to be heading out on a tour to mark their 50th anniversary this year. I’m not sure this is really news (it looked pretty certain there’d be no anniversary shows already), but they’ve confirmed it anyway.

Actually, last year there was a glimmer of hope of some activity (for people who hope for these things), when Keith Richards told The Observer that he and most of his bandmates were rehearsing for the first time since 2008. Mick Jagger was not involved in those rehearsals though, and has reportedly remained hesitant about performing with the band ever since, which possibly explains why Richards told Rolling Stone magazine this week that they are “just not ready” to perform again in public. He added that a 2013 tour is a “more realistic” proposition.

Though an ‘industry source’ told Rolling Stone: “They don’t want to do a full tour. They don’t want to travel, and there are concerns about Keith’s health”.

But there will be 50th anniversary celebrations nonetheless. A book of photographs will be published by Thames & Hudson on 12 Jul, featuring many previously unseen pictures of the band from across their career. And today it was announced that a new documentary is being produced by Eagle Rock Entertainment, which will be premiered in September.

Director Brett Morgan told CMU: “For anyone who wants to experience the band, this is the film that will defy convention and create a sonic tapestry to transport viewers into the world of the Rolling Stones. The film will deliver the original, bold, sexy and dangerous flavour of the iconic rock band”.

The as-yet-untitled film is being constructed from performance and interview footage captured over the last 50 years, including previously unheard music, and over 50 hours of interviews conducted with the band by Morgan himself.