Green Day's Mike Dirnt to Produce Indie Film 'Crickets' (Exclusive)

Alfredo Botello wrote the script about two estranged brothers, one of whom is dying of a terminal illness.

Mike Dirnt is best known as the bassist of popular punk rock group Green Day, but now he's stepping into a new role: movie producer.

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Dirnt, along with Green Day's longtime manager Pat Magnarella, will produce Crickets from a script by Alfredo Botello. The story, by Botello and Jack Umbrella, centers on the relationship of two estranged brothers. One, an aspiring stand-up comic, is dying of a terminal illness. He asks his brother, a depressed office drone, for one last request: to go on stage and perform his material for him to see if he ever really had talent. What he doesn't reveal, though, is that he has an even bigger surprise in store.

"I’ve been — and a lot of people have been — affected by illnesses and it’s a very relatable thing," Dirnt, whose wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, tells THR, adding that the love-hate relationship between the brothers "feels very real."

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Dirnt and Botello have known each other for more than two decades, with Botello owning a bar in the Bay Area that the bassist is known to visit.

"It’s something I've been working on a while back," says Botello of the script. "I wanted to write something about the topic of death that was touching but not too sentimental."

Dirnt and Botello currently are assembling a team to work on the film. The musician says that he'll stick to what he knows best by also helping out with the music for the project.

"I'm just kind of tired of junk food movies," says Dirnt. "Here’s something that's a feel good, feel bad and feel everything movie."

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As a member of Green Day, Dirnt has heard his music on many film soundtracks throughout the years, including The Simpsons Movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2. He also is a producer on American Idiot, the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, which is currently in development.

Botello wrote and directed The Xmas Special, as well as the series Reality Reboot. He's repped by Jeff Ross Entertainment.

E-mail: Rebecca.Ford@THR.com

Twitter: @Beccamford