It’d be criminal to take the life of Elton John, one of the most outrageous and inventive figures in the history of modern pop, and fashion it into a boring, dull music biopic.
Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on with Rocketman, an upcoming film starring Taron Egerton of Kingsman fame as the bespectacled, ‘Candle In The Wind’-crooning legend.
Instead, if the new trailer is anything to go by, director Dexter Fletcher (probably best known for being the man who filled in for Bryan Singer after the filmmaker was fired partway through the Bohemian Rhapsody shoot) appears to be going for a fantasmagorical take on John’s life, filled with impromptu musical numbers and sustained fantasy sequences.
Watch the trailer here, and then we’ll reconvene below
The only way to tell his story is to live his fantasy. ✨ @TaronEgerton is Elton John (@EltonOfficial) in #Rocketman, in theatres May 31. Watch the new trailer now! pic.twitter.com/VUfoZ4YaA5
— Rocketman (@rocketmanmovie) February 21, 2019
Looks wild, right! First thoughts: this movie is going to make a lot of money. If there’s one thing boomers love, it’s going to see movies about the musicians they grew up with in a desperate attempt to re-live the wild days of their youth, back before they irreversibly fucked the planet and before ‘political correctness’ meant they couldn’t use their favourite slurs.
After all, Bohemian Rhapsody has become only one of 11 films in the history of Australian theatrical releases to cross the $50 million mark at the box office — when it drops in May this year, Rocketman seems certain to do the same.
2018: Bohemian Rhapsody
2019: Rocketman
2020: Nobody Does It Better: The Carly Simon Story
2021: Songs in the Key of Stevie
2022: Piano Man
2023: 1970s Infinity War (Michael McDonald snaps his fingers)
2024: Captain Linda Ronstadt
2025: Disco Endgame— Mark Ellis (@markellislive) February 21, 2019
Also, Egerton has a surprisingly lovely voice — that’s all him singing the songs, which might come as a shock for those of us who only know him from the sweary, violent Kingsman movies.
Add the sense of visual abandon, old school numbers, and the most enjoyably sordid elements of any music biopic (the drugs! The swelling egos! The inevitable fall!) and this looks like a genuinely fun time at the movies.
Gotta say though, if the film doesn’t feature that time John wandered around a beloved indie record store in Sydney, I’ll be disappointed.
The post Someone Get Mum: The Trailer For The Elton John Biopic ‘Rocketman’ Just Dropped appeared first on Junkee.
