Showtime Acquires Doc Based on Rock Book ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom’

Former SPIN intern Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 chronicle of the 2000s-era New York rock scene, Meet Me in the Bathroom, is headed to Showtime in the form of a Pulse Films documentary directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern. The long-in-the-works film debuted earlier this year at Sundance; Showtime will air it before the end of the year, while Utopia will distribute it to theaters.

Meet Me in the Bathroom detailed the rock resurgence in New York over the first decade of the new millennium through oral history-style, firsthand accounts from The Strokes, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ryan Adams, among others. The book was hailed not only for documenting personal, often salacious details about the artists’ interpersonal relationships, but examining the effect of cultural changes like the rise of the internet on the music industry.

Lovelace and Southern previously directed the 2012 LCD Soundsystem doc Shut Up and Play the Hits, centered around what at the time was called the group’s final live show. “At various points during the six long years it took to bring Meet Me in the Bathroom to life, it occurred to me what an incredible documentary this would make,” Goodman said in 2017 when the documentary was first announced. “At the time it seemed like a total fantasy but it now feels like fate that the team behind Shut Up and Play the Hits, the show that gave me the idea to write this book in the first place, would be the ones to bring Meet Me in the Bathroom to the screen.”

Utopia Distribution recently announced a documentary on British rock legends The Zombies and is redistributing the beloved rock doc Anvil! The Story Of Anvil in theaters this fall. Other upcoming releases include controversial director Gaspar Noé’s Vortex and Lena Dunham’s Sharp Stick. At Showtime, Meet Me in the Bathroom joins a documentary slate including the recent Sheryl Crow film Sheryl and the Bill Cosby-focused We Need To Talk About Cosby.