A movie based on New York band the Ramones could be coming apart after a legal battle that in many ways mirrors the trajectory of the dysfunctional punk pioneers.
After years of legal turmoil over the Ramones estate, co-owned by the families of late singer Joey and guitarist Johnny, a legal ruling appears to have put a stop to a Netflix book adaptation of the band’s story by the singer’s brother.
The book, I Slept With Joey Ramone by Mickey Leigh, has never been popular with Johnny Ramone’s widow, Linda Cummings-Ramone. Control of the band’s intellectual rights is split evenly between the two of them.
Cummings-Ramone sued Leigh in January, accusing him of wrongfully developing a Ramones movie that he had initially presented as a Joey Ramone film. She said this would cannibalize any official biopic of the band.
Leigh then counter-sued Cummings-Ramone for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, breach of contract, and leveraging the band’s intellectual property “for her own fame and vanity” to install herself as “the Queen of the Ramones”.
But now an arbitrator has ruled that director David Frey be removed from the Ramones parent company, RPI. The decision cited Frey’s failure to act in the company’s best interests and accused him of fostering a “dysfunctional” and “disruptive” relationship with Cummings-Ramone. The arbitrator cited Frey’s failure to secure Cummings-Ramone’s approval for the adaptation of Leigh’s memoir, described by Netflix in an email as “the story of the Ramones”, and described a breach of his “duty of care, honesty, and loyalty” by moving forward without consultation.
The arbitrator, Shira Scheindlin, said Frey had blocked a high-profile opportunity for the Ramones’ 50th anniversary celebration, where Cummings-Ramone had been invited to throw the first pitch at a New York Mets game, because she had chosen to participate under the name “Linda Ramone”.
The involvement of the film project’s attached star, comedian Pete Davidson, is now also in doubt.
If 2018’s billion-dollar grossing Bohemian Rhapsody, and 2019’s Rocketman, proved anything it is that rock biopics can be highly profitable, creating star vehicles that breathe life into valuable music catalogues and provide star vehicles. Some have not fared as well, however, including the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black.
Forthcoming titles include A Complete Unknown, with Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, and Deliver Me From Nowhere, with Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen. Selena Gomez is also set to star as Linda Ronstadt.
Joey and Johnny Ramone did not speak after Linda, who had originally dated Joey, later married Johnny. Joey wrote a song about the love triangle, The KKK Took My Baby Away, and the pair would only communicate through a third-party interlocutor, even on their tour bus.
However, Linda never stopped adoring Joey who, at 6 foot 6, performing behind a mop of hair and thick dark glasses, was one of rock’s most compelling frontmen.
She was with him when he wrote Danny Says, a song title that refers to Danny Fields, their original co-manager. “He wrote that song to her,” Fields says. “It’s a love song about the girl he misses back home. It was Joey’s love letter to Linda.”
The movie dispute dates back to 2006, when Cummings-Ramone consented to a potential production but later claimed the film was based on Leigh’s “one-sided recitation” of the band.
Leigh, aka Mitchel Hyman, objected to Cummings-Ramone’s adoption of the name “Linda Ramone” that falsely suggested she was the “keeper of the legacy”.
A small exhibition mounted in 2016 gathered up the essentials – a leather jacket, a guitar, T-shirts, a stack of stage amplifiers and speakers, absentee school attendance reports, and a record deal pitch: “The Ramones all originate from Forest Hills. The kids there grow up either as musicians, degenerates or dentists. The Ramones are a little of each, their sound not unlike a fast drill on a rear molar.”
The Ramones became known for their live shows, never pausing between songs.
“We suck but we give them show. Wait ’til you see us,” Johnny said.
Joe Strummer of the Clash later observed: “You couldn’t slide a piece of paper between their songs when they performed.”
“So the show was 27 minutes, with melody and rhythm changes, but it never stopped,” says Fields. “It was like a train bearing down on you … an onslaught.”
An arbitrator in 2019 pleaded with Linda and Leigh to put aside their differences, and warned them that the battles were causing the Ramones brand to experience “tepid growth”.
The arbitrator identified a movie as the way to go, describing Bohemian Rhapsody as a demonstration of “the power that a biopic can have on improving the stature of a rock band”.
But the Ramones found it hard to secure a hit record in their time – Fields says they hadn’t sold many records when he and Linda Stein, wife of Sire records founder Seymour Stein, were replaced by other management in 1980.
But they left as strong a legacy as any other band, with their early work considered to have had a lasting influence. “It’s in keeping with yet another irony of their existence,” Fields says. “They’re more famous now than they were then.”
As with many epic rock disputes, the argument is as much about control of mythology as it is about business – a quest that frequently drains off money to lawyers. Fields says Mickey Leigh has attempted to hijack the story. “He made himself part of the creation myth.”
In a statement to Billboard, Johnny’s widow said she was “thrilled” by the ruling and described the preservation of the band’s legacy as “a deeply personal mission”.
