John Lennon Biopic ‘Nowhere Boy’ Will Become A Stage Musical

John Lennon’s biopic titled Nowhere Boy is going to be adapted for the stage as a musical, stated a news story published by Deadline. The 2009 film detailed the teenage years of Lennon, the formative and foretelling time of his life prior to becoming a member of The Beatles.

Before finding his place as a musical legend within a group of young men all searching for a life outside of working-class Liverpool, England, Lennon was a young man who endured a lot of strife during his early years. He was the son of mismatched couple Julia and Freddie Lennon, neither of whom spent much desperately needed time with their young son. Julia was a social butterfly and Freddie a sailor who was away at sea most of the time, leaving a free-spirited Julia to tend to their son.

In turn, she would turn the day-to-day parenting of a young John over to her sister, Mimi Smith, who would help raise the boy as her own along with her husband George Smith.

The musical will follow the same footprint as the film. It will not tell the story of The Beatles, but rather the life that led Lennon to his friendship and working relationship with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison.

The musical will circle around Lennon while he was a member of the pre-Beatles group The Quarrymen and his complicated relationships with both Mimi and Julia, noted Deadline.

Mimi took on the role of mother to Lennon and raised him sternly but with great love and compassion. Julia abandoned the role of parental figure and instead, focused on being her son’s friend. She purchased him his first guitar in 1957, shared his love of rock and roll music, and would watch with great pride as he played in his first band The Quarrymen, reported The Liverpool Echo.

In 1958, when John was just 17, Julia was struck and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman as she walked toward a bus stop after visiting with John and Mimi, reported The Beatles Bible. Julia’s death would be the catalyst that would direct her son’s fate, as John would lean more and more on music as a way to deal with the loss of his mother.

Lennon and his aunt would maintain a close relationship until his assassination in 1980 outside his New York City apartment building.

The film Nowhere Boy starred Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lennon, Kristen Scott Thomas as Lennon’s aunt Mimi Smith, and Anne-Marie Duff as Lennon’s mother Julia.

Lennon’s second wife, Yoko Ono, is reportedly aware of the project, according to Deadline, but is not involved.

For Beatles fans who will be looking for the band’s iconic tunes to be performed in the musical, sadly, this will not be the case. Instead, as in the film, Lennon’s musical journey will be told via the rock hits of the late 1950s.

The project is still in development with no official word as to when and where the play will debut.