Here's some news that should make Pharrell fans very happy: The musician's life is the inspiration behind an upcoming musical.
The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the project is called Atlantis, billed as a "Romeo and Juliet style story" inspired by Pharrell's childhood in Virginia Beach. Williams lived in a housing project named Atlantis apartments until he was 7 years old.
The musical was picked up by Fox Studios and will reportedly be directed by Michael Mayer, known for his Broadway productions of Spring Awakening and the Green Day musical American Idiot. The script is reportedly being written by Toy Story 4 scribe Martin Hynes, while Pharrell is a producer on the project. No word yet on who will star or when it will go into production.
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Pharrell, of course, is no stranger to movies. While he's contributed music to films like Despicable Me 2, he also produced and worked on the soundtrack for 2016's Hidden Figures and most recently produced the Sundance film Roxanne Roxanne, a biopic about hip-hop pioneer Roxanne Shante.
It's no surprise that the father of triplets would want to celebrate his youth in Virginia. In a 2015 interview hosted by NPR at NYU, Pharrell said living in the Atlantis "was probably the most fun I ever had in my life." That's because it was a place where music was always playing.
"Music was everywhere," he said, "you know, it was like air, it was like you go outside to hear music, you are in the house, someone's playing music. It was just music was just like second nature."
In 2014, Pharrell told CBS Sunday Morning that he grew up seeing life in a "colorless way" thanks to the sounds that filled his life. "The one thing that connected us? Music," he said of his diverse group of friends who loved hip-hop and skateboarding. "It was the one thing that transcended like what our parents didn't understand but what we totally got."
Now Pharrell's giving others a chance to get it, too.
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