It’s been almost 20 years since the release of Avril Lavigne’s hit single “Sk8er Boi,” but instead of revisiting the iconic song, you might be tuning into the movie soon enough. On the podcast She is the Voice, Lavigne recently reflected on the song’s upcoming milestone and said that she was planning to adapt it into a film.
“Recently with it being almost the 20th anniversary, a lot of people have been asking me to play this song on some TV shows, so I feel like it keeps getting brought back up and people always reference it to me,” she said. “And I’m actually going to turn this song into a film and take it to the next level.”
It may well be the start of a renaissance for Lavigne: the star recently signed with Travis Barker’s label, DTA Records (and joined Barker as a feature on “Grow,” a track from Willow Smith’s latest album) and released a new single, “Bite Me,” ahead of her upcoming seventh album, which comes out in February. Lavigne skyrocketed into fame and was dubbed a pop punk princess in the early aughts off of songs like “Sk8er Boi,” “Complicated,” and “Girlfriend.”
“Leaving home that early and going on to a tour bus, I kind of feel like I half grew up on a tour bus,” Lavigne, now 37, said on the podcast, reflecting on the “gnarly” experience of getting signed at the age of 16 and becoming a teenage star. Her parents weren’t around much, and there was a lot of partying, but no drugs, she added. Having grown up through the disorientations of young fame, Lavigne sounded remarkably grounded, perhaps owed to what she said was a strong management team when she was a teenager.
The comments about a “Sk8er Boi” film are the first word of an adaptation — nothing has been announced yet, and no studio has been publicly attached — but there is undoubtedly an enduring love and nostalgia for the track: Lavigne went immediately viral over the summer after posting her first ever Tiktok, featuring her lip-syncing to the song, and revealing a skater boy that was none other than Tony Hawk.
And the song, a tale of forbidden love between a ballet dancer and a skater who eventually becomes a rock star, already has a tale with a teenage romcom built-in. “You know what it was like in high school, you have all the different groups and cliques, and there’s skaters, preps, jocks,” Lavigne said. “It’s kind of like a missed opportunity at love. The skater boy is in love with the preppy girl, but like she’s too cool for him. But then five years from now she sits at home feeding the baby, she’s all alone. She, down the road, wishes she would have followed her heart and not (lived) up to society’s expectations.” Just don’t be surprised when the Avril’s movie hits Netflix in a year or two.
