'We're not into music, we're into chaos': watch the new trailer for Sex Pistols TV drama Pistol

Pistol TV show
(Image credit: Miya Mizuno/FX)

Disney+ have release an extended trailer for Danny Boyle's forthcoming Sex Pistols' drama trailer Pistol, which is set to air in the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on May 31.

Pistol is based upon Sex Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones’ acclaimed 2018 memoir Lonely Boy, and has been adapted for television by writers Craig Pearce (Strictly Ballroom, The Great Gatsby) and Frank Cottrell Boyce (24 Hour Party People), who also worked with Boyle on the staging of the theatrical opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics.

“Imagine breaking into the world of The Crown and Downtown Abbey with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent,” Boyle said when the series was first announced. “This is the moment that British society and culture changed for ever.  It is the detonation point for British street culture… where ordinary young people had the stage and vented their fury and their fashion… and everyone had to watch and listen.....and everyone feared them or followed them. The Sex Pistols.

“At its centre was a young charming illiterate kleptomaniac, a hero for the times, Steve Jones, who became in his own words, the 94th greatest guitarist of all time. This is how he got there.”

Upon its publication, Lonely Boy was described as “the story of an unlikely guitar hero… who transformed 20th century culture and kick-started a social revolution.” 

Set to air on Disney+ (home to acclaimed Beatles documentary Get Back), Hulu and FX, Pistol stars Toby Wallace (Babyteeth) as Steve Jones, Anson Boon (Crawl, 1917) as vocalist John Lydon, Louis Partridge (Enola Homes, Medici) as bassist Sid Vicious, and Jacob Slater as drummer Paul Cook, as well as Fabien Frankel (The Serpent) as Glen Matlock, Dylan Llewellyn (Derry Girls) as Wally Nightingale, Sydney Chandler as Chrissie Hynde, Emma Appleton as Nancy Spungen, and Game Of Thrones star Maisie Williams as punk icon Jordan.

John Lydon has voiced his opposition to the series, calling it "disrespectful shit."

“It is so destructive to what the band is,” Lydon said last year, “and so I fear that the whole project might be extremely negative.”

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.