Editor and director John Ottman is set to direct “Billy & Me”, a feature film chronicling the formative years of superstar singer-pianist Billy Joel.
“Billy & Me” tells the origin story of Joel before fame, before the hits — and, significantly, before “Piano Man,” the 1973 song and album that lofted him to stardom. The film is told through the eyes of Joel’s first manager, Irwin Mazur, who discovered the singer in 1966, signed him in 1970 and oversaw his career up to his breakthrough deal with Columbia Records in 1972.
Casting is currently underway, with production slated for this fall in Winnipeg, Canada and New York. The film follows the two-part 2025 HBO documentary on the singer, “And So It Goes.”
The production has secured Mazur’s exclusive life rights, as well as those of Joel’s longtime friend, drummer and video director Jon Small, who is also on board as a consultant, co-executive producer and second unit director. Small was Joel’s drummer in their early band the Hassles, as well as Attila, a little-known acid-rock duo comprised of him and Joel that released an album in 1970. That album is deeply incongruous with the singer’s other work — Joel has described it in no uncertain terms as “psychedelic bullshit.”
