Billy Joel condemns unauthorized biopic as legally and professionally misguided

Billy Joel is pushing back hard against an unauthorized biopic that his camp says cannot clear the basic rights needed to make it work. The project, titled Billy & Me or Billy and Me, is being developed around Joel’s early years and is said to be told through the perspective of his first manager, Irwin Mazur, and longtime friend and drummer Jon Small.

John Ottman is attached to direct and Adam Ripp is reported to be writing the film, but Joel’s representative says the parties were formally notified in 2021 that they do not possess Joel’s life rights and would not be able to secure the music rights the project requires. Joel has not authorized or supported the film in any capacity, and his camp has called any attempt to proceed anyway “legally and professionally misguided.”

That dispute sits at the center of a larger business problem for the modern music biopic. The appeal is obvious: a single hit film can turn a legacy artist into a fresh box-office asset. Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic co-produced by the Jackson estate and Universal Pictures, was reported to have opened globally to $217.4 million, then later climbed to about $703 million worldwide, putting it near the benchmark set by Bohemian Rhapsody. That kind of performance helps explain why producers keep chasing life-story projects even when the subject pushes back.

But the Joel fight also shows how thin the line is between storytelling and control. Filmmakers can often dramatize public facts about a musician’s life, yet the commercial engine of a music biopic usually depends on the songs, and those rights are a separate gatekeeper. Without authorization from Joel’s side, and without the music rights his camp says are unavailable, the project faces a far steeper path than a standard studio release.

Still, coverage says the production is aiming to begin filming in the fall. That signals how aggressively the market is rewarding music-related IP, even as personality-rights objections grow sharper around living subjects who do not want their lives packaged for the screen. Joel’s objection is not just a celebrity protest; it is a warning that the economics of the genre are outpacing the legal comfort of the people whose names make the movies sell.