Chris Jericho has spent decades turning his life into stories, whether through wrestling, music, books or his podcast. Now, the early chapters of that life could be headed to television.
In an interview with Skratch N’ Sniff, Jericho revealed that he has been developing a TV series based on his first book, A Lion’s Tale, which follows his journey from a young wrestling fan to the beginning of his professional career. The project has been in development for some time, and Jericho said it is getting closer to the pilot stage.
“We are actually working on something based on my first book, A Lion’s Tale, that we’ve been working on for a while, doing a TV series based on that,” Jericho said. “And so we’ve kind of moved it up the food chain and it’s getting pretty close to filming a pilot.”
The idea came up during a conversation about the recent resurgence of wrestling stories on screen, including The Iron Claw, based on the Von Erich family, and Queen of the Ring, which tells the story of Mildred Burke. Asked who might play him in an adaptation, Jericho joked that Brad Pitt was out of the running because the actor is older than he is.
He did, however, reveal that the production has an actor in mind from the Canadian comedy series Letterkenny. Jericho declined to name the performer, but said there was a resemblance to him during the early days of his career.
“I won’t say who it is in Letterkenny, but there is a real facial similarity,” he said.
For Jericho, the appeal lies in having room to explore those formative years across a series. “We might have a whole actual TV series about kind of the early years of my career, which would be a lot of fun,” he said. “That’s something we’re working on, and we’re moving to the pilot stage fairly soon.”
Jericho also confirmed that he has been involved in shaping the project for television from the beginning. As with making a record or pursuing a record deal, he said, getting a series off the ground takes more than having the initial idea.
“You’ve got to put a lot of time into it to get it through all the different goalposts that it needs to get through,” he said. “But so far so good.”
The series and pilot have not yet been announced as completed, but Jericho is already open to adding another title to his résumé. Asked whether he could become a showrunner if the project moves ahead, he replied, “If things go well, for sure.”
Watch The Full interview with Chris Jericho from Fozzy:
