‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ was announced in May of 2019, and the movie took its time before being showcased at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2021. The 147-minute-long documentary went on the edit table to slash down to 137-minutes. Despite the effort, the documentary received bad reviews at the Venice International Film Festival.
The film was initially titled ‘Apollo’. The documentary has various sections where clips from the era got used to showcase the band’s performance. The film likely uses footage of Jimmy Page performing with The Yardbirds at the Village Theater in New York on August 25, 1967.
It also has footage of Led Zeppelin performing at the Laurel Pop Festival in Maryland on July 11, 1969. It was around this time in 2021 that the movie’s name got finalized. In August 2021, an announcement got made that the movie will get called “Becoming Led Zeppelin” with a teaser release to hype the excitement before its eventual showcase in Venice.
The trailer of the film was released in September 2021. The film got screened in Venice with surprise screenings in Telluride. A year later, the administrator of Led Zeppelin’s official forum, Sam Rapallo posted an update stating:
“Regarding ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’, I understand they are nearing the end of the edit and have been taking advantage of the time to make the film as good as possible. I have seen the film in several stages and think it is an extraordinary piece of work that I hope we all get to share in soon,”
He added:
“As the filmmakers have told me, they’ll continue to be on the search for the unseen archive from the period the film covers all the way until the film is released, so if anyone has anything they would like to send their way, please reach out to me. A few new gems have been added since its public screening last year,”
It comes as a surprise because after all the years and the effort the film has not got its footing yet. The makers are still trying to make it better, and while that is good, a delay only kills the excitement. It applies to any movie or documentary because the attention span is less, and no one wants to wait for a longer duration for anything to happen.
Do you think this delay is a good choice, or the makers could have prevented it from happening by finalizing everything beforehand? Is the ‘Too many cooks spoil the food’ statement perfect in the current situation? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
