Cleopatra Entertainment has released the first official trailer for Lynyrd Skynyrd biopic, Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash.
The biopic is based on former drummer Artimus Pyle‘s life and his account of the tragic plane crash on October 20, 1977, in which the band’s frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, background vocalist Cassie Gaines, were killed.
Assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray also lost their lives in the crash.
“This is something that shouldn’t have happened, but it did. There have been many variations and accounts of this story,” Pyle (Ian Shultis) narrates in the video. “But I was there.”
“This is more than a story about the plane crash. It’s about the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the greatest Southern rock band of all time,” he adds.
The trailer shows Pyle and Skynyrd, who share a good camaraderie, grow in stature and get to own a plane. There are scenes showing the group playing a live in concert, partying together and preparing to board the ill-fated fight.
A young co-pilot is seen revealing his dream of flying with the rock stars. “After this, I’ll be able to die a happy man,” he says.
The film, written and directed by Jared Cohn, premiered on February 16 at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. The movie was made without the approval of the current incarnation of the band.
In 2017, surviving Skynyrd members and the estates of the band members who were killed in the crash filed a lawsuit against Pyle and Cleopatra, claiming the film “may contain a potentially inaccurate or skewed portrayal of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s story as filtered solely through the eyes of Pyle masquerading as the True Story of a defining moment in the band’s history.”
However, a judge in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled in 2018 that the film could move forward.
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