Avril Lavigne says she plans to turn her 2002 hit “Sk8er Boi” into a feature film.
“With it being almost the 20th anniversary … it keeps getting brought back up and people will always reference it to me,” the 37-year-old Canadian singer said during an appearance on the She Is the Voice podcast. “And so, I’m actually going to turn this song into a film and so, like, take it to the next level.”
Lavigne co-wrote “Sk8er Boi” with Scott Spock, Lauren Christy and Graham Edwards and it was released as the second single from her debut album Let Go.
“You know what it was like in high school, you have all the different groups and cliques, and there’s, like, skaters, preps, jocks – and it’s kind of like missed opportunity at love,” she said of the song’s inspiration.
“The skater boy, you know, he’s in love with the preppy girl but she’s too cool for him but then five years from now she sits at home feeding the baby, she’s all alone and down the road she wishes she would have followed her heart and not tried to live up to society’s expectations and stuff.”
Lavigne said “Sk8er Boi” remains one of her favourite songs to play live.
In 2003, the song was optioned by Paramount Pictures and writer David Zabel was hired to adapt it into a film. Billboard reported at the time that Sk8er Boi would focus on “two teens from different backgrounds and the social constraints in which they find themselves” and would have “a heavy musical component.”