An Animated Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Is Heading to the Big Screen

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Elton John are teaming up to produce the animated feature.

Andrew Lloyd Webber will team up with Elton John to bring Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to the big screen. The two British music icons will collaborate with STX Motion Pictures to adapt Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical into an animated family feature.

According to Deadline, the announcement was made March 28 at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

John’s group Rocket Pictures will produce the film alongside Lloyd Webber’s company, Really Useful Group. No word yet on casting or a production timeline. Lloyd Webber and Rice will pen new songs for the movie.

The show uses a pop score to tell the Biblical story of Joseph, his doting father Jacob, and his jealous brothers, who sell him into slavery. Despite losing everything, Joseph gains respect from the Pharaoh as an interpreter of dreams.

Joseph marked the first publicly performed collaboration between composer Lloyd Webber and lyricist Rice. The musical began as a 15-minute presentation at Colet Court School in 1968 before being released as a concept album the following year. The full show premiered in the West End in 1973 and received numerous additional professional productions in the U.K. before making its U.S. premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1976. A subsequent Off-Broadway production transferred to Broadway in 1982, running for over 700 performances at the Royale Theatre (now the Bernard B. Jacobs).

Take a look at a footage from the 2014 U.S. national tour—starring husband-and-wife duo Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo—below.



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