Rob Zombie squelches rumours he'll direct Motley Crue biopic

by Steve Newton on March 10th, 2011 at 12:55 PM

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Rob Zombie has made movies about some pretty sketchy characters before—most notably the murderous Firefly clan he depicted in his horror flicks House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects—but he claims that, despite rumours to the contrary, he will not be directing the film adaptation of Mí¶tley Crí¼e's 2001 autobiography The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.

Word started getting around that Zombie would bring the famously sleazy antics of the L.A. glam-metal act to the screen after Crue drummer Tommy Lee was quoted saying so on Billboard.com last week. Lee later clarified the remark via e-mail, saying "I would LOVE to have Rob Zombie direct The Dirt, but as far as I know that's not happening. I haven't heard that anyone has been picked yet. You know, the drummer's always the last to know. :)"

Currently touring in Australia, Zombie confirmed that he has no involvement with the project. "I am not directing the Mí¶tley Crí¼e movie," he stressed to Undercover.fm recently. "I don't know how that craziness started."

What Zombie does plan as the followup to his disappointing Halloween II remake of 2009 is The Lords of Salem, about a 300-year-old coven of witches that returns from the grave to menace the town of Salem, Massachusetts.

The last time Zombie played Vancouver was in May of last year, when he shared a coheadlining bill with Alice Cooper on the Gruesome Twosome Tour. That gig was notable for a few things, not the least being that Zombie slugged an overzealous fan in the head for grabbing his hair. At the time Zombie was touring behind his Hellbilly Deluxe 2 album, which—unlike most of his movies—was no screaming hell.

And speaking of unremarkable Rob Zombie music, "The Lords of Salem" was also the title of a song off his 2006 CD Educated Horses. Let's hope the upcoming movie has a bit more going for it than that tedious tune.