BLABBERMOUTH.NET
During an appearance this past Monday (September 21) on
SiriusXM's
"Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", original
KISS guitarist
Ace Frehley confirmed that he has been approached by the producers for the upcoming official "definitive" documentary on his former band. "They offered me a small fee to be involved with it, and I turned them down,"
Ace said. "I thought the fee was embarrassing, because I know how much money they're gonna make on it. So, either share the wealth, or c'est la vie. So I decided not be involved. But they have plenty of old footage of me, and they'll probably use that and get by. But it won't be the same as if they get current footage. Unfortunately, I decided the money that they offered me wasn't anywhere near what I felt I deserved, so I turned it down. The footage you're gonna see of me in this documentary is only gonna be old footage."
Earlier in the year, it was also announced that a
KISS biopic was in the works.
KISS manager
Doc McGhee revealed that producer
Mark Canton, who worked on the movie
"300", is involved in the project. Asked if he would like to see a biopic made on
KISS, and which actor he would like to see play him,
Ace told
"Trunk Nation": "I'm not even thinking about a
KISS movie; I'm thinking about an
Ace Frehley movie, because I think I'm the most interesting member of the four founding members. And I have the best stories and the most interesting life. I grew up in the Bronx, poor, lower middle class, living in a one-bedroom apartment, and next thing you know, I'm in one of the biggest rock groups in the world. That's a huge success story. I've already been pitching to
eOne, my record label, who also has a division for movies — they put out films. And I was talking to the president of
eOne, plus I was also talking to the president of [toy giant]
Hasbro, because
Hasbro just acquired
eOne… They did all the
'Transformers' movies. They made billions off those films.
Hasbro has billions of dollars. So
Hasbro has acquired
eOne. And I did a
Zoom call, and I told those guys, 'Hey, we've gotta do an
Ace Frehley movie. And let's get [
Martin]
Scorsese to direct it, because he grew up in the Bronx, and he would get it better than any other director.' So, I planted the seed, and we'll see what happens. Maybe in a couple of years, the
Ace Frehley story. I'm not concerned with the
KISS story. Everybody knows the
KISS story. How many documentaries have we done? [
Laughs]"
This past March,
KISS guitarist
Tommy Thayer told Sweden's
RockSverige.se that the band's official documentary was "at least halfway" done. "The director is
John Dorsey and he's done great things before,"
Tommy said. "We've done interviews on camera and he's putting together a lot of historic footage and talking to a lot of different sources, including us and our archives. It's coming along. I've seen a little bit and I think it will be really exciting and really well done."
As for the fan-submitted material that will be included in the documentary,
Thayer said: "I know some guys that are big collectors and there's this guy called
Mark Cicchini, he's one of the
'Three Sides Of The Coin' [
KISS] podcast guys and he's not only contributed material, but he also pointed
John Dorsey in a lot of good directions as far as making contact with a lot of fans. We have a lot of great stuff in our archives for certain, but there's still a lot of other unique and rare stuff out there that we don't have. It's a matter of sourcing that stuff."
KISS's current lineup consists of original members
Gene Simmons and
Paul Stanley, alongside later band additions,
Thayer (since 2002) and drummer
Eric Singer (on and off since 1991).
Formed in 1973 by
Stanley,
Simmons,
Frehley and drummer
Peter Criss,
KISS staged its first "farewell" tour in 2000, the last to feature the group's original lineup.