"Oh my God, this is mind-blowing": The makers of Becoming Led Zeppelin say they found some amazing unseen footage from later in the band's career

Led Zeppelin onstage at the Royal Albert Hall, January 1970
(Image credit: © 2025 Paradise Pictures Ltd)

The makers of Becoming Led Zeppelin, the documentary that focuses on the band's early years, have talked about the difficulties involved in making the movie, the likelihood of producing a second film to continue their story, and the unseen footage they've found.

In a new interview with Classic Rock, director Bernard MacMahon and co-writer/producer Allison McGourty are asked if they'd like to make a sequel.

"If we have another five years to kill," says MacMahon (work on Becoming Led Zeppelin began in 2017). "But if the band were even agreeable to telling the next part of that, I would have to think long and hard about the idea.

"We haven’t given the matter any thought, not unless you consider finding a really cool clip [from later on in the band’s tale] and going: ‘Oh my God, this is mind-blowing’. There were a couple of those that we left on the shelf."

"Films like this one are very hard to make," adds McGourty.

"The scale of the workload is so difficult to describe," MacMahon continues. "It’s like making War And Peace but cutting out all of the words from newspapers, like a ransom note."

The full interview with MacMahon and McGourty will appear in the next issue of Classic Rock, published on March 4.

Classic Rock's review of Becoming Led Zeppelin describes the film as "a fascinating portrait of a band whose legend is tied up with their careful custody of their own legend" before going on to say that, "It doesn’t wholly demystify this most mystical of rock bands, but it does reveal the human brilliance at their heart."

Becoming Led Zeppelin is in cinemas now.

US Screenings | UK Screenings

BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN | Full Length Trailer (2025) - YouTube BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN | Full Length Trailer (2025) - YouTube
Watch On
Fraser Lewry
Online Editor, Classic Rock

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.