In February 2003, it was announced that the band had signed with New Line Cinema to create a Tenacious D film, with Liam Lynch as the director, and Black, Gass and Lynch writing the script and being producers on the production. There was also speculation that Red Hour Productions would produce the film, which was later confirmed. Later in 2003, Black announced the film's working title as Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny and that the script was about the band's search for a sacred guitar pick. Filming had been expected to take place by the end of 2003; however, it was delayed by almost a year due to Black being cast in Peter Jackson's big budget remake of King Kong. In December 2004, Black and Gass performed some songs from the upcoming soundtrack of the film whilst touring Australia, and announcing that the film would include cameos from Meat Loaf and Ronnie James Dio.
