Elton John and DavidFurnish's Rocket Pictures is teaming with Miramax Films to create a newanimated facility in London for the Rocket/Miramax CG-animated musical comedy GnomeoAnd Juliet.

Meanwhile Lee Hall, whoworked with John on Billy Elliotis writing the Elton John biopic tentatively titled Rocket Man for Disney. The project will be crafted as a musicalfantasy: "Tommy meets MoulinRouge," according to John.

Gnomeo And Juliet, which is set in the UK and is a take on theShakespearean love story set in the world of garden gnomes, is being producedand overseen by Baker Bloodworth.

John and long-timecollaborator Tim Rice have written three songs for the film and are planning towrite an additional two. "When I met with [Miramax president] DanielBattsek in New York, I told him I thought it needed more music not less,"John explained in Cannes this week.

Rocket Pictures is alsodeveloping another animated film Winging It written by Mark Burton, whose credits include Madagascar and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Furnish and John speculated that the facility couldstay active after Gnomeo And Julietis finished.

John, Furnish and Rockethead of development Steve Hamilton Shaw were in Cannes on Monday to talk up theirbody-swap romantic comedy It's A Boy Girl Thing starring Kevin Zegers andSamaire Armstrong.

The John biopic has hadJustin Timberlake attached, although Furnish said that no cast is definite."Lee's coming up with a clever way to tell the story," explainedFurnish, explaining that John songs will be used to further the drama no matterwhen they were written in his career.

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