Paul McCartney is working on music for his first stage musical – an adaptation of the 1946 classic film It’s A Wonderful Life.
The 77-year-old is collaborating with script writer Lee Hall, who worked with Elton John on Billy Elliot: The Musical.
“Writing a musical is not something that had ever really appealed to me,” McCartney said, in a statement. “But … I found myself thinking this could be interesting and fun. It’s A Wonderful Life is a universal story we can all relate to.”
New York Post columnist Johnny Oleksinski said he heard demos of 10 songs McCartney has completed and said they “sound like a bona fide lost Beatles album, with one spectacular number’s rousing ending bringing to mind the ‘Na Na Na Na Na’s of ‘Hey Jude.’”
McCartney previously wrote the screenplay and music for the 1984 cinematic flop, Give My Regards to Broad Street.
Producer Bill Kenwright reached out to McCartney in 2016 about writing music for a musical version of It's A Wonderful Life.
Directed by Frank Capra, the movie starred James Stewart as George Bailey, a small-town banker who gets schooled on the value of life by a guardian angel.
It was turned into a musical in 1986 and revived in an off-Broadway production in 2006.
Kenwright hopes his McCartney-powered adaptation will debut in late 2020 in London and then make its way to Broadway.