Go Inside the New Bon Jovi Biopic

Universal Pictures won a bidding war to make a feature film about the rock band Bon Jovi. The studio secured access to the band's catalog, and it will work with lead singer Jon Bon Jovi himself.

Cody Brotter will write the screenplay. Producers will include Kevin J. Walsh and Gotham Chopra. No director has been announced, and casting hasn't started for key roles yet.

The film will focus on the band's creation and early years in New Jersey through their 1986 breakthrough album, Slippery When Wet, which catapulted them into stardom and changed everything for the group. The story will follow the singer's rise from working as an assistant at Power Station recording studio in New York to selling out stadiums worldwide. The movie will cover their performance at the 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival.

Jon Bon Jovi was born Jon Bongiovi in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He got an electric guitar as a Christmas present when he was 13 years old. He told The Guardian in 2024, "When you're that age, everybody thinks you're gonna be a rock'n'roll star and that you're gonna really make it. I was just dumb enough to believe it."

The band came together in 1983. Keyboardist David Bryan joined with drummer Tico Torres, late bassist Alec John Such, and original guitarist Richie Sambora. Sambora played with the band through 2013.

Slippery When Wet spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The record produced two No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer."

Gotham Chopra directed the 2024 four-part documentary, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story. The Guardian's Jack Seale called the project "a surprisingly devastating rumination on lost youth." That documentary covered the band's struggles, including member addiction issues and Jon Bon Jovi's vocal surgery.

In a 2025 interview, the singer said that he had been thinking about who he would want to play him in a biopic after watching Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. His top choice was his son, Jake Bongiovi, an actor who starred opposite Kiernan Shipka in the 2024 romcom, Sweethearts.

Universal Pictures has made many music biopics, including 8 Mile in 2002 and Straight Outta Compton in 2015. The studio has international rights to the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, which will come out in April. Other projects in development include biopics about Snoop Dogg and Britney Spears.

The band released their sixteenth studio album, Forever, in 2024. They will play their first shows in four years, starting on Jul. 7 with nine shows at Madison Square Garden in New York.