If the 2018 film musical belonged to Rami Malek and the insanely popular Bohemian Rhapsody, then 2019 is without a doubt all about another industry icon – Sir Elton John.
He’ll be the focus of the upcoming biopic Rocketman, in which Taron Egerton, star of Kingsman and the ill-fated Robin Hood movie, will bring the beloved musician to life on the big screen – from the star-spangled suits down to his beloved singing voice.
Promising an “uncensored” look at the life and legacy of Elton John, the film will peel back the many layers of the creative powerhouse and in doing so, won’t hold back. Or so says John himself.
You see, unlike the aforementioned Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman will be rated R and that’s something the artist had to fight for, as certain studios wanted to go the safer route. But as Elton explains below, his life was never very PG-13.
“Some studios wanted to tone down the sex and drugs so the film would get a PG-13 rating. But I just haven’t led a PG-13 rated life,” John said in an article he wrote for the UK’s Guardian. “I didn’t want a film packed with drugs and sex, but equally, everyone knows I had quite a lot of both during the 70s and 80s, so there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company.”
Thankfully, John got his way and Rocketman will arrive in theaters this week full of mature content and won’t be skimping out on any part of the singer’s life. And though that R-rating may mean a little less money at the box office, if it’s able to even come anywhere close to Bohemian Rhapsody ($900M-plus), then the execs at Paramount will surely be laughing all the way to the bank.
While reviews have been a little mixed thus far, Rocketman certainly looks like a refreshing change of pace from what we’re used to when it comes to the music biopic genre and we can’t wait to see it for ourselves when it opens in theaters later this week, on May 31st.
