If you love hard rock and heavy metal (and why wouldn't you?) but somehow missed the Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath farewell concert, you might still be in luck. And instead of having to work or whatever else you were doing, you might have a chance to choose your own time to finally see the show.
There is a bit of a catch, though. The farewell concert will be coming to a movie theater near you in early 2026, Mercury Studios has announced, but not all of the entire hours-long concert will be available. Instead, fans will receive a "100-minute cinematic experience." Instead of the concert, the film might feel a bit more like an Ozzy and Sabbath documentary.
This might one day lead to a streaming or Blu-Ray experience where fans can watch the entire concert again, of course, but seeing the gig on a big screen would have been great. It probably would have also been logistically impossible. What theater wants to eat up one or two screens for a nearly all-day event?
If you missed the Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath farewell concert, you have another chance (sort of)
In the theater, says Mercury Studios, the film will be "(p)resented as a love letter to Ozzy and the pioneering sound of Black Sabbath, the theatrical release will be a distilled version of the epic all-day event held at Villa Park. Featuring thunderous performances of "War Pigs," "Iron Man," "Children of the Grave," and a show-stopping "Paranoid," the film promises a deeply personal and electrifying farewell from the godfather of heavy metal with exclusive behind-the-scenes access and interviews from this iconic live performance."
The question becomes not whether a person wants to spend their money in hopes of seeing the Ozzy and Sabbath event they missed, but whether they want to spend that same money on what is, for all intents and purposes, a Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne documentary. That might definitely be worth watching, but it's a different experience from the farewell concert.
Part of what made the goodbye gig so special was the other bands involved. Metallica was brilliant, as was Guns N' Roses. The two supergroups were hit and miss, but even some of that was magical. The assumption is we won't see much, or any, of that in the theatrical release.
The other part that is unclear is whether the proceeds for the film project will also go mostly to the three charities that benefited from the farewell concert, Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorn Children’s Hospice. Let's hope so.