‘Moonage Daydream’: Freak Out on the New Trailer for David Bowie Documentary

Neon has unveiled the full trailer for the upcoming David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, the first film officially sanctioned by the music legend’s estate. 

Using the eponymous song as its soundtrack, the new preview teases the amount of unseen archival footage the film contains, spanning all eras of Bowie: From Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke to his radical transformations in the Eighties and Nineties. Moonage Daydream is also narrated, through archival clips, by Bowie himself.

“Throughout his career, across generations, Bowie taught us that our differences were our strengths,” Neon said of the film. “With Moonage Daydream, Bowie provides us with a roadmap of how to survive the 21st century, inviting audiences to celebrate his legacy and enduring influence like never before.”

The Brett Morgen-directed doc will arrive in theaters — and in IMAX — on Sept. 16; Morgen previously helmed the Kurt Cobain doc Montage of Heck, and The Kid Stays in the Picture.

As Morgen previously told IndieLand, while it took him just months to cull through the archives for the IndieLands doc Crossfire Hurricane and Montage of Heck, it took him two years to work through Bowie footage. At the onset of working on Moonage Daydream, Morgen also suffered a near-fatal heart attack, which forced him to be extra cautious during the Covid-19 pandemic that also shut down production.

“I don’t mean to make light of any of this, but: Bowie was the best quarantine companion one could possibly have,” Morgen told IndieLand. 

“You know, I’m sitting here, two years removed from a heart attack, and I’ve moved into my office because I’m too freaked out to be around anyone. So I’m all alone trying to do this by myself … and yet I’m making a film on an artist whose stock in trade is how to be creative during periods of isolation. It comes up in every phase, from Ziggy to Blackstar. I didn’t see anybody for the first few months of the pandemic, but I saw David’s face every day when I woke up to go to work. It was almost like it was meant to be a piece of pandemic art. That was the only way it could be finished.”

Morgen continued, “I feel like Bowie taught me that. You know, there might be a few things in Moonage Daydream that the estate isn’t happy to have in there. But they gave me final cut, and never told me I had to include this song or that, or make any changes. Right from the start, it was: This isn’t David’s film. He’s not going to see it. This is David Bowie by Brett Morgen. Make it yours.”