Broadway Musicals that Deserve Film Adaptations or Remakes?

Let Robert Eggers make a good movie version of Sweeney Todd.

I think you have to consider what musicals would be 'enhanced' by the medium of film. Pretty much all the great movie adaptations of Broadway musicals - from THE SOUND OF MUSIC, to WEST SIDE STORY to MY FAIR LADY, OLIVER, FIDDLER and even CHICAGO were able to use the medium of cinema to tell the story in a way you just can't do on stage.

On the flip side, the trap to SWEENEY TODD, LES MISERABLES and PHANTOM was that the musicals on stage were larger than life - the minute they were put in realistic settings: dingy small rooms, backstage dressing rooms, narrow alley ways, the material felt claustrophobic.

And it also largely comes down to having a director who really understand how to direct a musical for the screen.

I think RAGTIME and THE COLOR PURPLE could make exciting movie musicals. I think SUNSET BOULEVARD, PARADE, and A CHORUS LINE would seem claustrophobic on film. The first film of A CHORUS LINE was a horrible adaptation, but illustrated a lot of ways why the piece itself isn't a good fit for the cinematic medium. It would be nice to have a proper filmed document of the stage production though.

I could see WAITRESS or PIAZZA being done on a smaller scale but can't imagine much of an audience for the later.

“Miss Saigon” - if done and adapted right could be an Oscar contender

“The Color Purple” - would be a great TV movie...maybe two parter.

“Carousel” - remake would be great

“Hello, Dolly!” - TV movie with Bette Midler would be amaaaazing.

Here me out --I think David Lynch could deliver a sublime, definitive adaption of Anyone Can Whistle.

The piece is drowning in cynicism and harsh truths dressed up in pleasant clothes. There is no one better equipped at illustrating the subtextual horrors of suburban America than David Lynch.

Also Laura Dern as Cora Hoover Hooper... *chef's kiss*

Waitress 100%. I'm shocked it hasn't been announced yet. It has the appeal and the popularity and the big name stars (Sara Bareilles, Colleen Ballinger, Keala Settle, Joey McIntyre, Jack McBrayer, Al Roker) in their roles. And honestly, I would love love to see Taylor Swift as Jenna. That's the role she deserves and is perfect for!

I think we're due for Assassins.

g.d.e.l.g.i. said: "Alex Kulak2 said: "Let Robert Eggers make a good movie version ofSweeney Todd."

I'm not familiar with Robert Eggers' work, so I can't co-sign him as director, but I can definitely concur that Tim Burton got it wrong and that the show needs a proper film adaptation. Burton missed the boat all the way around by turning it into yet another example of his limited oeuvre.

One thing that struck me when I first listened to the score was, "Wow... this doesn't sound like it was written in the late Seventies." (Not that you can restrict Sondheim's work to any specific era, except maybeCompanyorWest Side Story.) It sounded very like an MGM musical in places. And it struck me that if I ever made it as a film, I'd have leaned into that, creating a feature that turned all the tropes of classic Golden Age film musicals on their head, sort of an anti-"MGM musical" where everybody dies.Very over the top and stylish and broad, as if it were directed by Ken Russell in hisBoyfriendperiod, with proper attention to the music and not that whisper-sung nonsense.

Also... I know I'm beating a dead horse in saying so, but what really went right up my ass, pardon the phraseology, was cutting the ensemble. They can talk all they want about their justification, it's B.S. It's a musical, so we expect ensemble singing, as unrealistic as they find it to be. The whole character of certain songs was lost, and sometimes even the title, like why the hell call it "God, That's Good!" anymore if you never hear that phrase even once?

Plus, after reading the screenplay and learning how "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" would have worked, with the ghosts of Sweeney's victims recurring throughout the film, both as their ghost selves (sort of omniscient narrators; it was kind of implied that the story is being relived) and as themselves before they got killed, I was particularly incensed to lose that. Seeing the sole remnant of it -- Anthony Stewart Head is still in the film (as his "alive" self, asking if Sweeney has a shop in the Pirelli sequence) because the ax didn't come down on those scenes until after they'd already filmed his bit -- sticks out to someone who knows what's missing.

What really bugs me is that the artistic justification for cutting the ensemble is, in my opinion, total bull. As I understand it, Burton was all set to film them until Johnny Depp's daughter got sick. Johnny rushed to the hospital to be with her, Tim rushed to the hospital to be with Johnny (because... moral support, I guess?), and it set the schedule back enough that ensemble stuff wound up on the cutting room floor. Tim later justified it with all his crap about singing ensembles being unrealistic, but it always struck me as a hastily thought up excuse after the fact. I mean, I wasn't there; I have no clue how serious the health situation actually was, and besides that, maybe executive meddling was involved, maybe he was all set to go back and do it and the studio was like "Look, it got pushed way behind schedule, something's gotta go." But if so, I don't want to hear how you justified it to yourself. Just be honest. Say the studio killed it or that you done goofed. Don't try to claim this was something you wanted to do going in, you don't hire Christopher Lee (seriously) to leave him in the dustbin. It's disingenuous.

(Especially when production didn't need to halt for Tim to rush to Johnny's side. SH*T like that is what second unit directors are for, go in and get all the stuff that doesn't have to involve the leads. Let Tim watch it when he comes back. If something doesn't look right, let him re-shoot. It's not a difficult concept.)"

Robert Eggers directed The VVitch and The Lighthouse, both psychological horror period movies. He goes super in depth to research how people of the era talked and acted. Imagine Sweeney Todd bathed in gripping, unflinching realism, instead of the cartoonish candy-coated version we got.

Would kill for a move adaptation of "City of Angels"

Les Miserables deserves a real adaptation and not that practical joke we got.

No stage musical "deserves" a film adaptation. Adaptations should be done only where somebody has an idea of how the material would be "improved" in film or video form. (I put quotes around "improved" because it's quite possible to think a project was perfect on stage, yet perfect only if different on film.)

The commercial drive to do live-action film adaptations is why we get such tepid versions of LES MISERABLE and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

ImaginaryManticore said: "I've never seen the film of Sweet Charity, so maybe I'm doing Bob Fosse no justice here. But I'd be very interested to see one of today's directorstake on the material. Now it would be a period piece, but the story could be looked at with a modern sensibility. Imagine it being made by someone like Olivia Wilde, who directed Booksmart."

Just watch Nights of Cabiria.