The full story of The Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson is finally hitting the movies in the form of Bill Pohlad's challenging, life-spanning biopic 'Love & Mercy' which stars Paul Dano and John Cusack as the respective younger and older Wilsons.

Paul Dano in 'Love & Mercy'
Paul Dano stars as a young Brian Wilson in 'Love & Mercy'

While being responsible for writing one of the most important rock albums in history, 1966's 'Pet Sounds', Brian Wilson was at the most fragile stage of his life during that decade. Dragged down mentally and emotionally by the stress of song-writing he took comfort in drug use and was subsequently forced to seek a range of psychological treatments. As tensions within the band grew, he became more and more erratic and lost in a confusing world of hallucinations and psychosis. Paul Dano plays Wilson's enthusiastic younger self, while John Cusack takes on the role of the broken man that came decades after. Paul Giamatti also makes an appearance as Wilson's crooked psychologist Eugene Landy who fed him excessively high dosages of medicative drugs and prevented him from seeing his partner Melinda Ledbetter (who is played by Elizabeth Banks). 

Watch the teaser trailer for 'Love & Mercy' here: 


The cast admit to having a deep love of the entire surf rock movement that The Beach Boys pioneered, with banks previously telling The Hollywood Reporter: 'I'm very patriotic and I believe that it is built into the fabric of Americana. They are the greatest American rock band of all time.' Cusack describes 'Pet Sounds' and the belated 'The Smile Sessions' as 'revelatory' in nature, while Dano confessed: 'It was so fun to go through the fazes of listening to all the music and finding new favourites'.

More: See pictures from the set of 'Love & Mercy'

Oscar nominated producer Bill Pohlad ('12 Years a Slave'); who's only ever directed one other feature, 'Old Explorers', back in 1990; financed the movie after taking inspiration from a rejected script of a similar nature entitled 'Heroes and Villains'. He took on screenwriters Michael Alan Lerner and Oren Moverman to work on the new script, with the latter having previously worked on Bob Dylan movie 'I'm Not There'. 'Love & Mercy' is named after Wilson's song of the same name, which featured on his self-titled solo debut in 1988.

John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in 'Love & Mercy'
John Cusack is Brian Wilson's older self in 'Love & Mercy'

It was announced last year that Wilson was recording new music to be used in the film, which will appear alongside an exciting score composed by Atticus Ross. He is also set to release a new album on April 7th entitled 'No Pier Pressure', so it seems he's never learnt to take it easy. 'I'm so excited to share with all of you a first look at my upcoming movie', Wilson told fans in a message on his official website. 'Bill Pohlad is an amazing story teller, and I hope you will come see it. This has been both an honor and a thrill for me.'

More: Read our review of 'No Pier Pressure'

'Love & Mercy' will be released in movie theaters on June 5th 2015.