Singer Elton John has decided to help produce an animated adaptation of the hit musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice. John and Rice previously worked together on Disney’s The Lion King.
John’s Rocket Pictures said that it just acquired the rights to make a film version of Joseph and has chosen to go the animated route, notes The Los Angeles Times. Rice and Webber also agreed to executive produce with John. Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish are producing with Webber’s Really Useful Group.
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat started in a school and was the first step on the path that led to my musicals with Tim Rice,” Webber said in a statement, reports TheWrap. “It is now being performed all over the world by a fourth generation of school kids, and a great movie can only help Joseph being part of the lives of many more.”
Rice and Webber first wrote Joseph for schools, but it soon became a Broadway hit in 1982. Productions of the show expanded around the globe and a new U.S. tour is set for this year.
Rocket Pictures is also developing a biopic on John’s life, which will star Tom Hardy as the “Crocodile Rock” singer. Focus Features signed to distribute.
The company also made 2011’s Gnomeo & Juliet and is working on an animated sequel to that film, as well as Will Gallows and the Snake Bellied Troll.
image: ABC