Earlier today, the Los Angeles–based production company Jupiter Rising Film announced that Yasiin Bey would portray Thelonious Monk in a biopic about the late jazz legend. The co-founders of Jupiter Rising Film also said that production on the movie, titled
Thelonious, would begin in summer 2022.
T.S. Monk—Thelonious Monk’s son and the chairman and co-founder of Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment, the official company of the Thelonious Monk Estate—tells Pitchfork that the film is not authorized by the estate. “This project and its announcement are totally unauthorized! I hate the script and I control the music in Thelonious’ catalog,” Monk wrote in an email. “There is no involvement by anyone in the Monk family with this project, and we actually condemn the effort.”