The Led Zeppelin News Email - 22/12/24
More news on 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' and a new trademark battle looms
Hello! Welcome to the 372nd Led Zeppelin News email. We email out regular summaries of Led Zeppelin news so that you don't miss anything.
We’re going to play it by ear when it comes to sending updates during the next two weeks. If there is enough news to warrant a weekly email, then we’ll be in your inbox. If not, we’ll resume our news summaries in the new year and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.
Led Zeppelin
More news on the release of ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’
This week has seen a festive blizzard of news about next year’s release of “Becoming Led Zeppelin”.
We now have confirmation that the film will be released in the UK on February 5. Following the film’s IMAX-exclusive release in the US and Canada on February 7, it will then have a nationwide release on 1,000 screens in the US on February 14.
We also learned this week that the film will be released in Italy on February 27 and it looks like it’s coming to Germany and Austria on March 18.
We’ve been keeping this article updated with all the different posters created to advertise the film’s release.
Along with the release news, a new full length trailer was released on December 19:
The trailer has some interesting additions not found in the trailer released on December 5. It shows home footage of John Bonham’s wedding and it uses audio of Bonham that doesn’t originate from the 1972 Australian radio interview used elsewhere in the film.
The black and white Fillmore West crowd footage in the new trailer isn’t from a film of Led Zeppelin but newsreel footage from a week after the band’s January 1969 shows at the venue.
There is still no sign from the film’s trailers of the unseen Led Zeppelin performance footage from the Fillmore West in January 1969 that was promised in a May 15 press release about the film.
You can find a full breakdown of the footage known to be in the film in this Royal Orleans thread.
Could Led Zeppelin’s decision not to promote the announcements about the film’s release be causing a lack of demand for tickets? We’ve heard anecdotes in the past week about many seats for screenings being unsold so decided to check it out ourselves.
Most early screenings, especially the February 5 early access IMAX screenings, are pretty full. But go further into February and screenings aren’t being booked up. In fact, from a quick check earlier this week we found two cinemas where no tickets have been bought at all.
For example, the Regal Westchester in Virginia is showing the film from February 13 to February 20. So far, it hasn’t sold a single ticket to any of the 31 screenings it’s holding.
Of course, the film’s release date is over a month away and we expect there to be a ramp-up of a promotional campaign for the film in the new year. The question now is how involved the members of Led Zeppelin will be with that campaign.
Led Zeppelin’s lawyers investigate trademark application from company behind football-playing robot film
Led Zeppelin’s army of lawyers knows no peace. They’ve cast their eye on a Miami film and TV production company which has applied to trademark the brand Zeppelin Studio Latin America in the US.
Lawyers working for Superhype Tapes, the company controlled by Jimmy Page that owns the Led Zeppelin trademarks, have applied for and been granted an extension until March to consider whether to seek to block Zeppelin Studio’s trademark application.
More telling trademark activity is likely to come around January 29 when the US trademark for The Led Zeppelin Experience expires. This seems to be the brand Led Zeppelin planned to use for its exhibition and hologram project. They were so settled on the name that they even forced Jason Bonham to change his band name to avoid clashing with it.
If the band lets the trademark expire on January 29, it’ll be a sure sign the project is dead. But if Led Zeppelin’s lawyers renew it, there’s a glimmer of hope that the exhibition may happen one day.
A price drop for Past, Present and Future
The record store selling a sleeve for the 1979 unreleased Led Zeppelin promotional album Led Zeppelin Past, Present and Future has dropped its asking price from $99,999 to $29,999.99. You can read our history of the record here.
Robert Plant
New Saving Grace date
Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Vienne, France on July 17.
Here’s a long lost Robert Plant radio phone-in interview from 1990
Copies of the show survived through recordings traded on casette tapes and sent around the world between Led Zeppelin fans but the interview wasn’t widely available - until now.
We published the full audio and transcript here. During the interview, Plant discussed the meaning of the object on the cover of Presence, said he “wasn’t really saying anything” in his lyrics until he wrote “Stairway To Heaven”, admitted to being a “media slut” and said speculation about him recording again with Jimmy Page was becoming “tedious”.
Upcoming events:
December 25 - The film ‘Mr. Jimmy’ will be released on Apple TV in the US.
Late 2024 / Early 2025 - Jimmy Page’s amp company Sundragon will release its new Nymph amps.
January 10 - Tickets for ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ go on sale in Australia and ‘Mr. Jimmy’ will be released in Japan.
January 31 - A Japanese translation of the book ‘Beast: John Bonham and the Rise of Led Zeppelin’ will be published.
February 5 - Early access screenings of ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ will begin in the US and Canada and the film will be released in the UK.
February 7 - ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ will be released in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
February 14 - ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ will be released nationwide in the US.
February 27 - ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ will be released in Italy.
March 18 - ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ is likely to be released in Germany and Austria.
Spring 2025 - An expanded version of Live at the Greek, the live album featuring Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes, is due to be released.
May 3 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Brussels, Belgium.
May 5 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
May 6 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
May 8 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Copenhagen, Denmark.
May 9 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Malmö, Sweden.
May 11 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Gothenburg, Sweden.
May 14 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Oslo, Norway.
May 16 - ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ could be released in further cinemas around this date and Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Stockholm, Sweden.
May 18 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Tampere, Finland.
May 19 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Helsinki, Finland.
May 21 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Tallinn, Estonia.
May 23 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Vilnius, Lithuania.
June - The book “Rock Visions”, which has a chapter on Led Zeppelin memorabilia, will be published.
July 10 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace at Festival de Poupet in Saint-Malô-du-Bois, France.
July 17 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace in Vienne, France.
July 21 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace at the Jazz in Marciac festival in Marciac, France.
July 23 - Robert Plant will perform with Saving Grace at Festival de Carcassonne in Carcassonne, France.
September 11 - The book “Valhalla!: The A to Z of Led Zeppelin” by Paul Brannigan will be published.
October - John Paul Jones’ song cycle for Dame Sarah Connolly will premiere in London.
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