Make it a Movie: Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

In our Making it a Movie section we play the role of movie producers and map out the movie production.  Daisy Jones and The Six is about a non-fictional rock band in the 70s and their rise to prominence and fame. It was a super gripping book that currently sits in sits as Keith and Dylan’s #4 & #6 books, respectively. It’s a fun, well written and fast paced book that is perfect as a summer beach read (and we nominated it as such). This book probably makes more sense as a longer form tv show… which is exactly what the producers thought and why it will be coming out shortly as a TV Show. However, we’ll take a crack at casting a would-could-have-been movie. 

Production Notes:

We’re a little late to the game on this as production for the TV show has already finished as of May 2022,  the show is being produced by Buddy Book Club’s arch nemesis Reese Witherspoon (although this book was amazing and she recommended). It will be released on Amazon Prime Video and it is supposedly 12 episodes.  A lot of young and up and coming future stars were cast in the roles, our casting below we’ll go with a few more household names.  Looks like everyone was having some fun making this though, sure they’ll call us in to help cast season 2:

Based on: Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre: Historical Fiction/Drama

Logline: Almost Famous + The Social Network

The book is told in an interview format in chronological order after all the events have occurred. It feels super real throughout as all the characters are well rounded and have different perspectives, there are no true ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ you understand everyone’s point of view and there is a lot of debate on which characters you side with (as we experienced heavily on the podcast episode).  I think it’d be easy to mistake this book as non-fiction.

For the movie, I would try in many ways to emulate the feel of the book by telling the story through the eyes of multiple characters – sort of like the movie Traffic or Snatch (minus the violence, but with the drug use). Similar to Almost Famous, the movie should evoke pretty much every emotion. There could be plenty of funny scenes (maybe not This is Spinal Tap funny but funny nonetheless), sad scenes, happy scenes, dramatic scenes, and everything in-between.

Main Characters/Casting:

Daisy Jones (Riley Keough cast in TV Show)– Grew up wealthy and given everything she needed, except loving parents. Beautiful, talented, but permanently scarred. She finds a purpose/home in LA’s music scene.  Eventually she is able to break through as a singer-songwriter, and her stardom takes off after joining The Six. A lot to this character, need a great actress plus someone you would believe as a charismatic/talented front-women. How about we cast someone that is not only an actually extremely talented actress but an accomplished singer in Zendaya? She has become so famous with her acting at this point I don’t know if people realize her immense vocal skills. I mean Replay is an absolute jam. Maybe our best casting yet. 

Billy Dunne (Sam Clafin cast in TV Show) – Charismatic front man of The Six with a few demons of his own. Like many singers of that era, he struggles with drugs, alcohol, faithfulness and his own ego. His chemistry with Daisy Jones is undeniable which is what made their band so electric. Want to melt TVs with even more sex appeal? Add another singer with acting chops, Harry Styles, as front man Billy Dunne. No man or women in the world would miss watching Zendaya and Harry Styles light up the screen. Even if it’s a fictional series, the music alone they produce would be amazing.

Camila Dunne (Camila Morrone cast in TV Show) – Wife of Billy Dunne, doesn’t play a huge role in the book, but I think with the love triangle that is formed in the book, she would have to be more of a major character in the movie. Confident, trusting, a loving and supportive wife/mom, Camila pretty much saves Billy from his own demise, but also rubs a lot of the band members the wrong way while doing so. We’ll go with another Euphoria actress in Sydney Sweeney, she’s blowing up right now but would be a great addition to an already star-studded cast.

There are a lot of other characters we could cast but for now we’ll stick with these. Let us know what we got wrong and who we’re missing!

Check out our full episode on the book here.