TheWeird Al Yankovic biopic starring Daniel Radcliffeis underway, and after set photos leaked over the weekend, the production has released the first official image of DanRad done up like Weird Al. He is unsettlingly convincing.

我不是嫁给了演员的想法ooking exactly like the real-life subjects they portray, but that is a VERY good facsimile of Weird Al, wow. I also love Radcliffe’s statement that goes with the photo, and how everyone is fully committed to the bit of presenting Weird Al’s life story as a scandal-ridden saga of debauchery and depravity. You have to market the movie anyway, might as well have fun with it and make it part of the narrative of the film. This biopic is approaching its subject as a parody, much as Weird Al approaches his music, and all the messaging surrounding the film supports that approach. It’s theWalk Hardway. That movie assumed Dewey Cox was a real person and used real concerts at proper music venues to advertise the movie, and the whole thing was so thoroughly convincing they torpedoed music biopics for…ever. That ship is still sunk. (That Elvis movielooks like a deleted scene fromWalk Hard.) Can the Weird Al movie do for music parodies whatWalk Harddid for music biopics? We’ll see. But it’s off to a good start.