In 1999, Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Eminem landed like a bomb in pop culture. His album The Slim Shady LP was both a massive hit and exceptionally controversial, and it earned him legions of fans around the world. In fact, his fans are so passionate that it's because of them that we have the slang term "Stans" – a reference to the rapper's 2000 hit "Stan."
After a quarter-century, that love is being examined in the new big screen documentary Stans. Between the success of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé's concert films last year (the former being the most successful concert film of all time at the box office) and the popularity of Becoming Led Zeppelin among Netflix subscribers, music and movies have been colliding in a big way as of late, and we're getting a special inside look at the world of Eminem later this summer in Stans.
Domestically, the doc is getting a limited theatrical release starting on August 7 exclusively in AMC Theatres, and it will only be on the big screen for a single weekend (so you may want to mark off your calendar now!). In order to qualify for awards, the film is getting a week-long run at the AMC Empire 25 in New York, and there will be at least two showtimes each day at each location.
As previewed in the trailer above, Stans will not just examine the highs and lows of Eminem's career – featuring a mix of archival footage, interviews, and recreations – but will examine the intense relationship he has with his fans and that his fans have with him. (I'll take this moment to point out that the eponymous Stan in the Eminem track is an extreme obsessive whose story ends with a murder-suicide).
This, of course, isn't the first time that Eminem has been featured on the big screen. When the calendar flips to November, die-hards will be celebrating the 23rd anniversary of director Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile – a fictional film loosely based on the rapper's life and early career in Detroit.
Looking back at the movie, it has an outstanding ensemble cast (including Kim Basinger, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Shannon, Taryn Manning and Anthony Mackie), and the Oscar-winning song "Lose Yourself" is an all-timer. However, that was a semi-autobiographical piece; where as Stans is purely a documentary. That means the Marshall Mathers we see on screen is unvarnished, and ready to get as candid as he wants about his own life and career.
If you want to reserve your seats now, tickets for Stans are now on sale via the AMC mobile app, the chain's official website, and via all platforms where the theater's tickets are sold. The film will be playing in 135 locations, so check listings to see if it is going to be playing near you. The soundtrack for the documentary is also now available for pre-order, with a press release promising to include previously unreleased tracks.
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