Elton John movie set photos: FIRST LOOK at Taron Egerton in Rocketman with Jamie Bell
ROCKETMAN set photos have arrived, giving a first look at Taron Egerton as Elton John and Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin.
Elton John makes surprise appearance in Snickers advert
The 71-year-old music legend is getting his own biopic next year, which is currently shooting in North London.
Kingsman star Taron Egerton, who plays a younger Elton John, was spotted with Jamie Bell, who is portraying Bernie Taupin, the singer’s long-term writing collaborator.
The pair were spotted in 1970s-attire carrying big suitcases across a London street.
In one shot Egerton’s Elton is shown getting out of a Land Rover Defender, while sporting a pair of pink-tinted glasses and the singer’s original ginger mop.
Egerton’s casting was announced last April, with Variety reporting that Rocketman will cover Elton’s “emergence as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music to becoming a music superstar and his partnership with songwriting collaborator Bernie Taupin.”
The film will be directed by Dexter Fletcher who last year replaced the fired Bryan Singer on Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddy Mercury biopic – a film which is released next month.
While Tom Hardy was originally attached to play Elton a few years ago, Egerton came on board after starring opposite the singer in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Both films are produced by Matthew Vaughn’s Marv Films, which also saw Egerton star in Fletcher’s Eddie the Eagle.
Also in the Rocketman cast are Bodyguard’s Richard Madden as music manager John Reid and Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila Eileen, Elton’s mother.
Lee Hall, who penned the script, claims the musical superstar took him to his house and got the diaries from a safe.
"He had all his private diaries that nobody had seen from where he was in rehab and left me there to read his stuff," he told The Sun.
He added: "But he's never commented once on the script, he hasn't interfered at all.”
Elton is currently on an epic farewell world tour, which will run for 300 dates and arrive in the UK next April.
Announcing the decision, Sir Elton said his "priorities have changed", adding that his and husband David Furnish's two sons, Elijah and Zachary, had changed their lives.
Rocketman is set for release on May 31, 2019.