Multiple movie studios passed on the opportunity to make Rocketman, an R-rated musical fantasia about Elton John's hedonistic breakthrough years. Too gay. Too expensive. Too reliant on an unproven star.

But one film company, the down-on-its-luck Paramount Pictures, saw the audacious project as a chance to prove something to both Hollywood and Wall Street – namely that, to borrow a reference from Sir Elton, it's still standing.