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Matt Baron/ShutterstockRocketman, the long-in-the-works Elton John biopic, has finally landed a deal with a studio and production is expected to begin this summer.
Deadline reported that Paramount Pictures will finance and distribute the movie, which will feature Taron Egerton, star of the Kingsmen: The Secret Service movies, as Sir Elton. Egerton, who provided the voice for one of the characters in the hit animated musical Sing!, has plenty of vocal talent, and according to Deadline, he’ll be singing Elton’s songs himself in the movie.
Dexter Fletcher will direct Rocketman; coincidentally, he’ll also be directing a biopic about another flamboyant, iconic British rocker: Queen’s Freddie Mercury. Lee Hall, with whom Elton collaborated on the award-winning musical Billy Elliott, wrote the Rocketman script.
Rocketman will follow Elton’s life from his days as child prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music, though his initial meeting and subsequent partnership with Bernie Taupin, to his success and global superstardom. Deadline describes it as an “unvarnished rock ‘n’ roll biopic with John’s life stripped…of the glitter.”
No word on when Rocketman will hit screens.
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