Better Man, the new semi-biographical film depicted on the life of Robbie Williams is all set to release on Boxing Day (December 26).
Biopics on singers have been all the rage over the past few years, with Elton John, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Amy Winehouse and Tina Turner being honoured on the big screen. However, Robbie’s biopic will be different from all the rest as he will be portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee on-screen.
Director Michael Gracey told BBC: “I wanted to come at this with a different lens. Quite often Rob will say, ‘I’m just like a performing monkey’ or ‘I’m up the back like a performing monkey’.
“It just sparked this idea of, we’ve got this chance to tell this story, not from the perspective of how we see Rob, but how he sees himself. And so I pitched the idea to Rob. I said, ‘You know, if you were to be an animal, how would you see yourself?'”
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Robbie had told Michael that he saw himself as a lion, before changing his mind to a monkey. After the animal was decided, the original plan was for Robbie himself to depict the chimp on -screen.
However, this would have involved the songwriter spending too much time away from home and his family, so the team decided on a CGI version instead.
The monkey was created by Weta, the same special effects company that created Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Caesar from Planet of the Apes. It is a combination of motion capture and CGI, with actor Jonno Davies taking on the speaking role of the character.
Fans have expressed their excitement about seeing something different in a biopic as they took to the comments section of the trailer on YouTube.
One fan commented: “Ttâs a great marketing idea. This movie wouldnât be getting talked about half as much if it was an other actor playing Robbie makes it intriguing.” Another person said: “The monkey is probably connected with his song ‘me and my monkey’. I love this, love the concept! Amazing!”
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Somebody else penned: “At the start, I was like, ‘No way, what on earth were they thinking?’ But TBH, as the trailer went on, I warmed to it, the desire to be different from other biopics that have gone before, which, at best, took about a week before I forgot them.”
While a fourth added: “I have been lucky enough to watch this movie at the premiere and it blew my mind. It’s fantastic and I think it was a great decision to portray him as a monkey. It’s brutal and emotional, I absolutely loved this movie.”
Better Man releases in cinemas on December 26
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