The fate of Ramones Netflix film starring Pete Davidson uncertain amid legal dispute

After years of prolonged legal battles over the Ramones estate, the future of Netflix's film adaptation of Mickey Leigh’s memoir I Slept With Joey Ramone, starring Pete Davidson, could now be uncertain. The news comes following a new arbitration process that resulted in the removal of a director from the parent company of the groundbreaking punk-rock band.

The decision marked a legal victory for Linda Cummings-Ramones, Johnny Ramones’s widow, as Ramones Productions Inc. director David Frey was ordered to be removed as director of RPI with immediate effect and rendered ineligible for re-election to the same post again for five years.

Frey previously managed Cheap Trick for several years but their relationship ended in an acrimonious split with the band in 2013, taking founding drummer Bun E. Carlos with him, as the two sued the three other bandmembers for hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly unpaid touring fees and other expenses.

In a statement provided to Billboard, Cummings-Ramone expressed her excitement, saying she was "thrilled" and that they could now "finally move forward and create and expand the legacy of the best band ever."

“Preserving this legacy is not just a responsibility but a deeply personal mission for me,” the statement reads. “I have dedicated my life to honoring and safeguarding the extraordinary contributions my husband and his band have made to music, culture and the lives of millions around the world.”

Netflix initially announced the Ramones film as a collaboration with STXfilms in 2021, with Jason Orley slated to direct and co-write the script with Davidson. Earlier this year, Cummings-Ramone filed a lawsuit against Frey and Leigh, Joey Ramone’s brother, that claimed he “covertly developed an unapproved and unauthorized Ramones-based biopic” without her permission.

After she filed the lawsuit in January, Frey and Leigh responded with a countersuit in March, accusing her of attempting to "install herself as the Queen of the Ramones." They argued that the biopic was not intended as a band tell-all but as an adaptation of a family memoir. One of the key concerns noted is that a film based on I Slept With Joey Ramone would undermine an official biopic of the iconic punk band, with the book's adaptation inevitably becoming a Ramones movie.

Earlier this week, a New York arbitrator granted Cummings-Ramone’s request to remove Frey as director of RPI, citing that Frey had ““breached his duty of care, honesty and loyalty, in failing to present the STX/Netflix deal to Ms. Cummings-Ramone and/or the Board of RPI for their approval.”

While the film could still continue through further negotiation, the decision against Frey further impedes the process of bringing the biopic to fruition.

As far back as 2006, discussions of a film were in the works with Cummings-Ramone consenting to potential production of the movie. Cummings-Ramone’s lawsuit from earlier this year claimed that Leigh had decidedly green-lit a biopic based on his “one-sided recitation of the history of the Ramones.”