Elton John‘s Rocket Pictures Pockets Film Rights to 'Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'

Rocket Pictures, the production company from Elton John, has pocketed film rights to Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Rocket plans to team with the Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group to produce an animated feature, reported Deadline.

Deadline reported, “Rocket plans to team with the Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group to produce an animated feature from the show, which started as a pop cantata written for schools, then became a concept album before reaching the West End and eventually Broadway. John will executive produce with Rice — they teamed on the 2000 Broadway hit Aida — and Lloyd Webber.”

Joseph and the Amazing Tehnicolor Dreamcoat was originally created by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for performance in schools. It was the first produced musical written by the duo. Today, the show is performed thousands of times a year by school children across the world, and it’s become a musical theater phenomenon. It can boast being the most performed musical in history, having earned over $600m at the box office.

Rocket Pictures focuses on family and music-related projects across multiple platforms. Broadwayworld.come wrote that “the project is the latest in a ramping up of Rocket Pictures' feature film slate. Rocket Pictures is currently producing Rocketman, the highly-anticipated spectacular musical reinvention of Elton John's life, with Tom Hardy starring as Sir Elton John, co-financed by AI Film and Focus Features distributing.”

Steve Hamilton Shaw of Rocket Pictures said, as quoted in an article by Broadwayworld.com, "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat is one of the most popular musical experiences ever conceived. We are excited about the huge potential of a contemporary animated version, and we're thrilled to bring this to the big screen in partnership with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice."

In other recent news, Universal Pictures closed a $1 million spec deal for Mena, a script by Gary Spinelli. Doug Davison and Brian Grazer are producing, and Kim Roth is executive producing. Check out the ScreenCraft post, “Universal Closes Spec Deal for Script By Gary Spinelli.”