The official LED ZEPPELIN documentary “Becoming Led Zeppelin” will be released exclusively in IMAX on February 7, 2025, in nearly 200 theatres. Ahead of the release, IMAX will hold one night only early access screenings in eighteen markets on February 5, 2025. Tickets are on sale now for both dates at imax.com/ledzeppelin.
“Becoming Led Zeppelin” is directed by the award-winning, Emmy– and BAFTA-nominated Bernard MacMahon (“American Epic”),and written by MacMahon and BAFTA-nominated producer Allison McGourty. It is produced by McGourty and Paradise Pictures in association with Big Beach, alongside executive producers Michael B Clark, Alex Turtletaub, Cynthia Heusing, David Kistenbroker, Duke Erikson, Simon Moran and Ged Doherty. Editing is by Dan Gitlin, sound supervision is by Nick Bergh, sound restoration is by Grammy Award winner Peter Henderson, with archival research from Kate Griffiths and Rich Remsberg.
“Becoming Led Zeppelin” explores the origins of this iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds. Powered by awe-inspiring, psychedelic, never-before-seen footage, performances and music, Bernard MacMahon‘s experiential cinematic odyssey explores LED ZEPPELIN‘s creative, musical, and personal origin story. The film is told in LED ZEPPELIN‘s own words and is the first officially sanctioned film on the group.
The hybrid docu-concert film also unveils a huge amount of rare and unseen LED ZEPPELIN performance footage. The result is a visceral musical experience that will transport audiences into the concert halls of LED ZEPPELIN‘s earliest tours, accompanied by intimate, exclusive commentary from the famously private band.
Director Bernard MacMahon said: “The cinematic power of IMAX paired with the film’s authentic sound creates an immersive and transportive viewing experience letting audiences feel like they are there, in the venues with the band.”
“Becoming Led Zeppelin” is a movie that almost didn’t come to fruition — the filmmakers were up against epic challenges, including the fact that hardly any footage from the band’s early period existed. MacMahon and McGourty embarked on a global detective search for material to illustrate the band’s story.
“We spent five years flying back and forth across the Atlantic scouring attics and basements in pursuit of rare and unseen film footage, photographs and music recordings,” writer/producer Allison McGourty said. “Then we transferred each piece of media with custom techniques, so that in IMAX, these 55-year-old clips and music would look and sound like they came out of the lab yesterday.”
“We couldn’t be more excited to be partnering with IMAX and Sony Pictures Classics to bring this film to big screens for all audiences, ZEPPELIN fans, of course, but also all music lovers and anyone looking for an inspiring, uplifting story with amazing music,” McGourty added.
Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, said: “I had a mind-blowing experience seeing LED ZEPPELIN for the first time in August 1969 at the Texas International Pop Festival in Grapevine, Texas and it has stayed with me ever since. This legendary group merits a spectacular North American theatrical release of this incredible film! I cannot think of a single movie that more brilliantly draws you into an artist’s story, shows you how their music was made, and makes you experience it as if it was brand new. I know it will be inspirational to young people and legacy defining for generations to come.”
A “work in progress” version of “Becoming Led Zeppelin” screened at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy in September 2021, and the “now completed” cut features “a brand-new sound mix (and) newly unearthed material from the archives of all four band members,” according to the Sony Classics announcement.
The first clip from “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, as well as a short interview with LED ZEPPELIN guitarist Jimmy Page about the documentary (conducted by FRED [Film Radio Entertainment & Dialogue]),can be seen below.
Speaking about his original goal for LED ZEPPELIN, Page said: “I was looking for a band with four… I didn’t want to have a band with just the guitarist and the other guys are bit players. There was a lot of bands like that. I wanted each and every musician in it to be equally as strong. So then when they came together, they would feel the contribution by the others and up their game; everybody is upping their game. I believe that the first album, the musicians — Robert Plant, John Bonham… Certainly John Bonham, but Robert Plant, myself and John Paul Jones had never played at that level of intensity as to the quality of how good they could play. But it all joins together into something really special. And that never stops.”
MacMahon previously directed the Emmy-nominated music documentary series “American Epic” about the early American roots music recordings of the 1920s. Page praised the film back in 2019, saying: “When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is ‘American Epic’, I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”
Plant added: “Seeing Will Shade and so many other important early American musicians brought to life on the big screen in ‘American Epic’ inspired me to contribute to a very interesting and exciting story.”
Jones stated: “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring this story to life.”
An official LED ZEPPELIN book, “Led Zeppelin By Led Zeppelin”, came out in October 2018.