On June 17, 2025, the music world lost one of its biggest icons whenKurt Cobain,the frontman for Nirvana, took his own life at the age of just 27. His passing has left him immortalized as a rock star who never ages. His life, while sad and tragic, is also a fascinating story, from his start as a kid in Aberdeen, Washington, to the highs of being one of the most famous people on the planet, and the lows of a paralyzing addiction. Cobain feels like the perfect choice for a biopic, yetdespite Hollywood’s love for movies about musicians, fromJohnny CashandElton John, toFreddie MercuryandElvis Presley, a feature film about Kurt Cobain hasn’t happened, even though plenty have tried. We may never get a movie about the man behind “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, but we did get one that came close when, in 2005,Gus Van SantdirectedMichael PittinLast Days, a powerful film thatwasn’t technically about Cobain but was so close that it might as well have been.
A Seattle musician’s life and career are reminiscent of those of Kurt Cobain.
Courtney Love Has the Final Say in a Kurt Cobain Biopic Being Made
For a feature film about Kurt Cobain to ever get made,it needs to have the approval of his widow,Courtney Love. She has the final say on any potential biopic, and so far the answer has either been no from her, or she’s been rejected by a studio that she saw as someone who could tell Cobain’s story. In a 2002 interview on theWTF withMarc Maronpodcast, Love told a wild story about Gus Van Sant andBrad Pittwanting to make a movie about Kurt Cobain and the supposed actions taken against her when she declined. According to Love, in the late 90s, after her success inThe People vs. Larry Flynt,she was cast inFight Club, leading to one of its stars,Brad Pitt, along with director Gus Van Sant, calling her to pitch a Kurt Cobain movie, with Van Sant directing and Pitt starring. Love said she “went nuclear” over the idea being brought up so soon after Kurt’s death. She told Pitt:
“I don’t know if I trust you, and I don’t know that your movies are for profit. They’re really good social justice movies. But if you don’t get me, you kind of don’t get Kurt, and I don’t feel like you do, Brad.”
As Love recalls it, she was then fired fromFight Club. A few years later, however, she was ready to make a movie about her late husband.Oren Moverman, the director of the 2009 film,The Messenger, was tasked with writing a screenplay, but this time it wasn’t Love who stopped it from being made. In a 2011 interview withThe Playlist, Overman revealed that Love liked his script, but producers atWorking Title and Universal rejected it because it was too unorthodox and experimentaland didn’t even address his suicide.Overman had envisionedBen Foster, one of the leads inThe Messenger, as his first choice to play Kurt. Before that, in 2009, there were reports that directorMarc Fosterwas going to make the movie,but he shot it down. For years, many fans have wanted to see a biopic withJoe Andersonplaying Cobain due to his similar look to the musician, but it never came to be. In 2007,there was even a reportthatEwan McGregorwas being looked at to play Kurt.
None of these ever came to fruition, which brings us back to the beginning and Gus Van Sant. He couldn’t get Courtney Love’s permission to make a movie about Kurt Cobain, sohe found a way to make a movieabout someone almost exactly like him, without ever saying Kurt’s name.
Gus Van Sant’s ‘Last Days’ Is About a Musician Very Similar to Kurt Cobain
In 2005, Gus Van Sant wrote and directedLast Days. It’s a simple movie about the last days of a sad rocker before his suicide, and though itsstar Michael Pitt plays a character named Blake, he is very much modeled after Kurt Cobain.Pitt is a doppelgänger for the leader of Nirvana, from the long blonde hair, the sunglasses, the striped shirts, and the gaunt physique. It’s not just the look of Blake that screams “Kurt Cobain!” but the plot and tone ofLast Daysas well. It’s a minimalist film, a collection of moments likeBlake escaping from rehab, hanging out at his home doing nothing, and finally, dying by his own hand inside of a greenhouse on his property before being found by an electrician, just like Cobain did.
In a 2005 interview withCHUD, Van Sant revealed how his film happened. The idea forLast Daysactually came to him in 1996, but it took until 2004 to make it. He originally intended to have the character of Blake distanced from Kurt Cobain, but as he saw how similar Blake was to Kurt, he decided to go with it, though he added, “It’s a fictional thing, it’s not supposed to explain literally Kurt’s last days but more poetically.”
Gus Van Sant’s ‘Psycho’ Did What Alfred Hitchcock Couldn’t — But to a Point
Gus Van Sant’s ‘Psycho’ is a strange sidebar in the director’s otherwise nearly flawless career that begs the question: why?
Last Daysdoes indeed have a more poetic feel. It doesn’t follow a normally structured plot, and doesn’t have the melodramatic paint-by-numbers biopic feel. You could argue thatLast Daysis kind of boring if seen with the wrong eyes, as the tone is more of quiet snapshots than big moments. That’s done on purpose, as Van Sant described Last Days toFilmmaker Magazineas a profile of the character that’s like an X-ray. He added, “What really happened to Cobain [just before he died]? Probably not that much. He probably just wandered around the house.” It’s an idea Van Sant had played with before, becauseLast Daysis the last in a trilogy of sorts, starting withGerryin 2002, followed byElephantin 2003. Both are based on real stories, withGerryloosely based on a true incident where a man got lost hiking with his friends and died, andElephantfollowing a school shooting similar to Columbine. Van Sant told Filmmaker Magazine, “We have a sense of what the character is feeling, but not why he is feeling that way. There is no backstory. This is true ofGerryandElephantas well.”
‘Last Days’ Is as Close to a Kurt Cobain Movie That We’ll Likely Get
If you’re a big fan of Nirvana like this writer is, and you’ve been waiting for that big Kurt Cobain Hollywood biopic, don’t get your hopes up, because it’s probably never going to happen. That’s actually for the best, as it’s hard to imagine that it’s something Kurt would want. As much as he craved fame, he also hated it and withdrew from it.An accurate look at Cobain’s life can be found in great documentaries,such asKurt Cobain: About a SonandKurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. They capture who he is more than any actor and a script could.
Still,Van Sant andLast Daysshow the proper way to tell stories about real people. Rather than focus on the same cookie-cutter structure of giving us our hero as a troubled kid, followed by them becoming famous, then losing it all, only to either get it back or die, Van Sant took the X-ray approach. Michael Pitt’s Blake comes across as a real person. We feel bad for him, but we’re not sure we like him because we’re not witnessing a traditional three-act structured movie character, but rather snapshots of a troubled life. It ends in tragedy just like Kurt’s life did, but just like Kurt Cobain will never be forgotten, if you watchLast Days, its haunting impact will never leave you either.
