With Stranger Things wrapping up its final season next month on the 2025 TV schedule, it’s time for the cast to find their next opportunities. Finn Wolfhard is already hard at work on a biopic about The Replacements, the iconic ‘80s band known for their timeless songs like “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “I Will Dare,” and my personal favorite “Within Your Reach,” as well as their infamous backstage antics. It could be the perfect role for Wofhard, but will he star in it? Let’s get into it.
The Film Is Based On A Great Biography
According to Variety, Wolfhard is co-writing a script with his father, Eric, for a biopic about one of my favorite ‘80s bands, based on the excellent biography by Bob Mehr, Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements. That’s right, it sounds like Wolfhard is staying in the decade that has meant so much to his early career as a co-star of the hit Netflix show that is set in the ‘80s, and dripping with Gen X nostalgia. Why not focus on a band that many Gen Xers like me consider a standard-bearer for the era?
The book, which came out in 2016, is fantastic deep dive into a band that’s broadly defined as a “punk band,” but anyone who loves The Replacements (or “The ‘Mats,” as fans often refer to them), knows that “punk” doesn’t do the band justice as their sound was so much more diverse than other punk bands of the era like Hüsker Dü and Minor Threat (two other bands I love from those days). The group was incredibly influential, but they also burned out quickly, brought down by drug use, alcoholism, and internal strife.
Wolfhard Would Be Perfect To Play Lead Singer Paul Westerberg
The ‘Mats were led by lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Paul Westerberg. He is iconic for his songs, sure, but he was equally notorious in the ‘80s for his rowdy, alcohol-soaked stage antics. The whole band was always teetering on the edge of collapse, and eventually it all caught up to them, and they split up in 1991.
Westerberg quit drinking in 1990 and embarked on a successful solo career after The Replacements broke up, which included writing songs and the score for one of Cameron Crowe’s best movies, Singles, in 1992. The surviving members of The Replacements (original lead guitarist Bob Stinson died in 1995) have reunited a couple of times over the years, most recently from 2012-2015.
Look at any photo of Westerberg from those hell-raising years for the band and tell me Wolfhard wouldn’t be perfect to play him in the upcoming music biopic. Not only is Wolfhard about the same age as Westerberg was in those days, but the role would be an excellent way to transition into more “adult” roles for the actor known for playing a teenager on Stranger Things, which, by the way, you can catch up on with your Netflix subscription, before the last season kicks off on November 26th.
According to the latest report, there is no word on whether Wolfhard will star in the movie he’s writing, but it seems too good to pass up playing the ostensible lead, and I hope he doesn’t.