George Orwell’s classic dystopian fairy tale Animal Farm will finally get the gaudy Elton John musical treatment it’s always deserved, with John reportedly working on an adaptation with his Billy Elliot collaborator Lee Hall. The two have supposedly been working to obtain the rights for two years now; interestingly, one of the last groups to option Animal Farm was the CIA, which allegedly purchased the film rights from Orwell’s widow in order to make the 1954 animated film, and rewrite the screenplay to “make its message more overtly anti-communist.” We’re guessing that the CIA has better things to do these days than worry about whether an Elton John musical is politically sound. (We’re also not entirely sure this is real, given that the story originates from an interview in The Daily Mail—which means there’s the possibility of a denial from John any minute now.)
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