Amazon Studios is adapting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
The film will be directed by Jon M. Chu (Wicked, Crazy Rich Asians, etc.).
Deadline reports that Amazon Studios is producing a film adaptation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the musical that launched the careers of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice when they were just 19 and 23, respectively.
The film, which is based on the story from the book of Genesis about Joseph and his jealous brothers, will be directed by Jon M. Chu, who is currently shooting the film adaptation of Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked and has previously directed an eclectic array of films such as In the Heights, Crazy Rich Asians, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
There have been several straight-to-DVD and TV versions of Joseph over the years, but it sounds like this would be the first “movie” version of the musical.
Nine years ago—during “the year of the Bible movie”, when studios were releasing big-budget films like Noah and Exodus: Gods & Kings—it was announced that Elton John was going to produce an animated version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and six years ago he signed a distribution deal with STX Films.
But that distributor is basically defunct now—their long-delayed action comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre was ultimately released in the US by Lionsgate last month, and it went straight to Amazon Prime in the UK and Canada last week—and I haven’t heard any buzz about the animated version of Joseph in years.
So it looks like Lloyd Webber & co. have decided to switch gears entirely and are now going the live-action route (unless Chu is planning on directing his first animated film…? but no, I assume someone would have said so, if that were the case).
I have no idea how soon this Joseph adaptation is going to be filmed, but the Wicked adaptation that Chu is currently shooting is supposed to come out in two parts, in 2024 and 2025. So presumably Joseph would be coming out sometime after that.
Then again, if Journey to Bethlehem—the Adam Anders Nativity musical that is coming to theatres this November—turns out to be a big hit, who knows? Maybe Amazon will want to get things going a little faster on its own Bible-themed musical.
And that’s another thing that intrigues me about this news: the fact that Amazon is producing this musical. As a lifelong Bible-movie buff, I have sometimes wondered why the major streaming services never tapped into this genre. For a while there—before certain financial realities set in—the streaming services seemed to be throwing money at anything and everything that would build up their libraries, but somehow they never cast a green light in this direction. The Joseph movie—a safe-bet adaptation of a popular 55-year-old musical—is the closest I think they’ve ever gotten to the genre.1
Anyway. I will be keeping an eye out for more news on this one, for sure.
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The story of Joseph and his multi-coloured coat has been adapted many times before, and has been particularly popular in the Middle East; I discussed several of those films in my review of the Arabic film God’s Stories: Joseph last summer.
I have also written reviews of The Bible Collection: Joseph, Joseph, King of Dreams (a sort of prequel to The Prince of Egypt), and the Iranian series Prophet Joseph, plus I interviewed director Roger Young about his work on The Red Tent, an adaptation of the story of Jacob’s daughter Dinah that also touches on Joseph’s story.
If the brief interest in shows like NBC’s A.D. The Bible Continues (2015) and ABC’s Of Kings & Prophets (2016) had come along just a few years later than it did, I cannot help but think that those shows might have been made for Netflix or Prime Video rather than the legacy networks. As it is, the only Bible movie I can think of that debuted on one of the major streaming services is Discovery+’s Resurrection (2021)… which was a re-edited version of A.D. The Bible Continues. The Chosen (2019-present), of course, is a big streaming hit now, but it was produced completely outside of the mainstream streaming services.
Also worth noting: Orange Is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan revealed in 2017 that she was developing a “teen Jesus” series (“like The Wonder Years, but with Jesus”), and many people assumed she was developing it for Netflix, but I haven’t heard a peep about it since.
Also, Paul Schrader indicated two years ago that he and Martin Scorsese were developing a streaming series called The Apostles and Apocrypha, but he did not say which service they were developing it for, and no one has said anything about that series since, either.
Incidentally, while I do not assume that all Bible adaptations are “faith-based”—the biblical stories are what they are, and they can be adapted by anyone for any reason—I do recommend checking out this five-part series at The Ankler on how the streaming services are, and aren’t, serving the American viewer, and I especially want to recommend parts 2 and 5 in that series, which look at how underserved the religious audience is.