Summary
Timothée Chalamet’s upcoming Bob Dylan movieA Complete Unknownis secretly setting up a shared cinematic universe with a different musician’s biopic by the same director. Set to be released on July 28, 2025,A Complete Unknownwill chronicle the early days of Dylan’s career leading up to the bombshell moment he plugged his guitar into an amp. Dylan is played by Chalamet, Pete Seeger is played by Edward Norton, Woody Guthrie is played by Scoot McNairy, and Sylvie Russo is played by Elle Fanning.
Based on the 2015 bookDylan Goes Electric!by Elijah Wald,A Complete Unknownis being directed by James Mangold from a script he co-wrote with Jay Cocks. Mangold has been helming a lot of big-budget blockbusters in recent years with the triple-whammy run ofLogan,Ford v Ferrari, andIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but he started out making smaller, character-driven films likeA Complete Unknown. In fact, this isn’t his first music biopic – and it might have a crossover with his last one.
Does Timothée Chalamet Really Sing In The Bob Dylan Movie?
Timothée Chalamet is playing Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown – but does the actor really sing and play guitar in the new movie?
James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown & Walk The Line Share A Johnny Cash Connection
Johnny Cash will appear in A Complete Unknown
In 2005, Mangold directedWalk the Line, a biopic oflegendary American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. It starred Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, for which she won Best Actress.Walk the Lineis renowned as one of the greatest music biopics ever made. It helped to establish a lot of the tropes that the genre is now famous for, and it gave audiences a clearer idea of who Cash was.
WithA Complete Unknown, not only is Mangold directing a new film about a musician following his Cash biopic; he’s even bringing Cash into the fold:Cash has a supporting role inA Complete Unknown. He’ll be played by regular Mangold collaborator Boyd Holbrook, not Phoenix, butthe films’ respective timelines actually cross over, soA Complete Unknowncould tie in with the events ofWalk the Line. If so, this could be the strangest shared cinematic universe to date.
A Complete Unknown’s Johnny Cash Will Inevitably Be Compared To Joaquin Phoenix
Could Boyd Holbrook live up to Phoenix’s Oscar-nominated performance?
Holbrook’s portrayal of Cash inA Complete Unknownwill inevitably draw comparisons to Phoenix’s performance inWalk the Line.Phoenix’s turn as Cash earned him an Oscar nodand established him as a movie star, so it’s unlikely that Holbrook will be able to top it with what will likely be a cameo appearance. But it’ll be interesting to compare the two and see which actor skews the closest to Cash’s iconic essence.
A Complete Unknown
Cast
A Complete Unknown is a biographical movie that follows a young Bob Dylan as he integrates with New York and catches the eye of the folk singers in the area, eventually propelling him into stardom.
