Billie Joe Armstrong Set to Star in American Idiot Movie; 2013 Release Planned

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will star in the previously announced film adaptation of American Idiot when the movie hits theaters in 2013, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Armstrong will reprise the role of sinister drug dealer St. Jimmy, which he played during several limited engagements over the course of the show's Broadway run. The musical's original stage director, Michael Mayer, will also helm the film. No other casting has been revealed.

Playtone's Gary Goetzman, a partner with Tom Hanks in the film's production company Playtone, said the company is set to develop several movie musicals each year. "Mamma Mia! proved that if the musical is right, obviously it can go into the stratosphere, as far as box office gross. We're always looking for musicals," he told the paper. "If we can do that, it'd be a genre that's as respected as any produced by the studios. Maybe there will be three musicals a year, maybe five. I think that's important otherwise we'd just have this tentpole mentality where if it's not based on a comic book or cost $200 million, you're stacked in like pillars. We need all these genres to be respected and we need the studios not to be afraid of them," he said.

Inspired by Green Day's 2004 album of the same name, American Idiot opened at the St. James Theatre on April 20, 2010. The show received three Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, and closed on April 24, 2011.