Posted by Emily Exton on 07/30/2012 at 4:19 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: justin bieber

With Justin Bieber’s music videos getting more and more dramatic, and the potential for strong, Mark Wahlberg-backed acting roles on the horizon, it’s only fair we hypothesize what his career would be like if  his first starring venture was in a dramatic biopic with award show potential, a la Eminem’s 8 Mile. Sure he crashed multiplexes in 2011′s Never Say Never, an inspirational documentary with 3D capabilities, but Oscar voters love gritty, “semi-true” life stories released between October and January each year.

The folks at UCB have taken it upon themselves to examine this possibility, diving deep into the personal details surrounding the 18-year-old and his family—Canadian stereotypes and hairstyle preferences included. It’s all in hopes of creating a more cinematic take on The Bieb’s already well known origin story, loosely titled “Gritty Justin Bieber Trailer.” Behold, a somewhat familiar tale you may not have heard before.

In this slightly altered Biebiverse, we meet a look-alike to Young Justin on the tough cul-de-sacs of Ontario, whose father parts ways with his family when he’s just a boy, but not without giving him the life-changing gift of a web cam. It’s a piece of technology he can’t bother to figure out himself, yet knows will be of some type of use when passed into the hands of his prodigal son.

With so much technology at his finger tips, and catchy pop songs in his heart, our hero must face what it’s like to be raised in a world with no respect for bangs (“Foreheads are where it’s at”) or busking on small town streets. Like any outcast, Young Bieber seeks shelter on the Internet, where an early performance video causes a stir with among a famously horny pop star and the ladies he’s trying to seduce.

So it’s under the tutelage of a Billboard regular that Bieber is able to triumphantly overcome the prejudices of those around him (“You’re Canadian and you’ll always just be Canadian”), proving both his nationality and hairstyle can make an impact on the pop circuit after all. Now’s the time in the trailer/spec script to blast “Believe” as loud as possible.

We love an underdog, and the performances here are pretty Oscar-worthy, if we do say so ourselves. It’s all a parody of biopic tropes and Bieber’s general “follow your dreams” mantra, but the idea isn’t a terrible one, nor totally unbelievable at this point in his career. If the biggest drama within NSN was whether or not Bieber’s voice would allow him to take the stage for his historic Madison Square Garden show, and TV documentary All Around the World focusing on tense moments of in off-stage accidents and technical malfunctions, we wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere an unknown opportunist was already shopping a potential script that focused on Canadians “overcoming the odds” by crashing the American pop charts. (Carly Rae Jepsen only furthers the case for this.) Consider the likelihood of such a project getting the green light, by comparing UCB’s creation to the Bieber-backed original, below.