Sophia Michaels
A three-part documentary series titled Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza is heading to Paramount+. Michael John Warren will direct the series exploring the festival’s evolution since it first emerged in 1991 as part of founder Perry Ferrell’s farewell tour with Jane’s Addiction.
“When Lolla was launched in 1991, the concert industry felt like a boring car ride that was running out of gas,” Ferrell shared in a statement. “We pumped new life into the live music experience and set the foundation for the youth’s counter culture to become important and exciting again. Now more than three decades young, I am happy to have this opportunity to give people an inside look at the festival’s contribution to music history.”
Since 1991, when it hosted traveling performances from bands like Nine Inch Nails, Violent Femmes, and Rollings Band, Lollapalooza has expanded to an annual event rooted in Chicago, with international versions popping up in Berlin, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Stockholm, and Paris.
The original iteration of the festival has boasted headlining performances from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, the Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, and more.
“As a naive teenager trapped in the doldrums of Suburbia, U.S.A, I attended the first-ever Lollapalooza, and it totally blew my mind,” Warren added. “It was dangerous, beautiful and instantly widened my perspective. So, it’s an honor to be entrusted to tell the true story of one of the most astonishing cultural touchstones in the last half-century.”
Warren comes to Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza having previously directed HBO’s Spring Awakening and the Nicki Minaj documentary My Time Again. It marks the latest festival-centered documentary since a slate of Woodstock ’99 retrospective projects.
MTV Entertainment Studios will produce the three-part docuseries with FunMeter. In a statement, FunMeter’s James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte shared: “This story is the music documentary jackpot for all of us at FunMeter. We love stories where we can pull back the curtain on something you think you know. In many ways it’s over 30 years in the making, with an unbelievable amount of never-before-seen archival.”
