Hmmn
Click Here to Read Clint Eastwood to Direct JERSEY BOYS Film Adaptation
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/21/06
Does anyone think this is a good idea?
It would certainly be interesting to see a washed-out dimly lit moody downer version of Jersey Boys.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
... and introducing Tiny Chair as Frankie Valli.
I don't think it's a good idea.
I don't think it's a bad idea.
It's a totally "meh" idea.
Broadway Star Joined: 11/6/07
I agree partially with Mister Matt. If Eastwood continues to shoot it in this style that he's adopted starting with Million Dollar Baby I don't think it will be as fresh as it could be. However, he does have a wonderful eye and is a brilliant director when all that is stripped away. If he breaks out of his recently formed mold I feel he can really do the film justice. He's been around forever, to the surprise of many is very musically inclined, and I think will be able to cover the wide time span of the film vividly. I have no idea how to predict what he will do with it but I am confident he can do a great job. I'm interested and excited to see what he does.
And ps, I definitely have more confidence in him than Favreau
At least it's not Shankman.
I could totally see him relating to Man In Chair in Drowsy Chaperone ...
... but Jersey Boys?
At least we won't have to hear the tinkling piano theme we get from every Clint Eastwood movie of the last 5 years.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
Can't be any worse than LES MISERABLES. Or others. Eastwood's a capable if really just incredibly merely adequate filmmaker. Surely there's some basic-cable guy who could do the job just as well as Eastwood, if they really just had to settle for the bare-bones minimum competence he represents.
Tom Cruise as Frankie?
I have a feeling this will be completely different from the Stage. They will probably use the real voices, so they can cast anyone in the flick.
Stand-by Joined: 7/30/12
Could be a fresh old eye, maybe he can rely upon his experience in the film of Paint Your Wagon........still he knows music (Jazz) or thinks he does, it might turn out okay
I think Bill Condon would have been a good choice for Jersey Boys.
Won't he make it heavy and ponderous?
Understudy Joined: 4/13/13
^ lol yes, it's prob gonna be super depressing
I really like all of Clint's movies and Jersey Boys is kind of uninspired so I'm interested to see what he does with it
Stand-by Joined: 4/20/06
Oh good! Judging from Eastwood's past films, this one will seem like it is 5 hours long and move at the pace of sludge. And is the article at the link actually trying to credit him as director of In the Line of Fire (a very good film that actually understood the importance of pacing)? Am I wrong in thinking Wolfgang Petersen, the director of Das Boot, was responsible for that film and not Eastwood? Either way, an exciting filmmaker with a strong understanding of musical theater Eastwood must definitely is not. He may have actually stumbled upon source material that when botched will make people temporarily forget his inexcusable, ghastly adaptations of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Absolute Power.
Updated On: 5/22/13 at 02:57 PM
The problem is that Jersey Boys is just another "music group makes it big" story. Some have been fictional, some have been factual:
Dreamgirls
Sparkle
That Thing You Do
Ray
The Jacksons: An American Dream
The Dreamgirls: An American Jack
The Cheescurls: An American Jack Cheese
They all have that big rise, then the cost of fame, blah blah blah. I understand why moviegoers can't sometimes tell one from the other.
Pretty much the only thing that makes one stand out from the next is the writing and the direction. Is the story told in a unique way?
Jersey Boys felt like "Dreamgirls Lite" when I saw it on Broadway. Thoroughly entertaining, but pretty much instantly forgettable, with two exceptions: the music and the pacing/staging of the events in the story.
So Clint Eastwood better put on his best imagination cap, his "Baz Lurhmann style" or something else that takes him away from being a straightforward, traditional storyteller or this one is going to be forgotten before it hits Redbox.
A friend was telling me last night how great Jersey Boys is. I'll have to see it sometime.
What ClydeBarrow said. There are always worse choices out there.
Hopefully it will not be another Annie
"Was it 6 songs or only 5"?
While his last few films have seemed like duds, I'm surprised at how many here either forgot or dump on films like MILLION DOLLAR BABY and MYSTIC RIVER, which I'd rank as masterpieces. I don't disagree that his recent films have all been rather cool, monotous-looking mood pieces but considering that he was bandying about the Beyoncé A STAR IS BORN remake, clearly this isn't out of the blue for what he's interested in right now.
I think he's an interesting, and certainly competent choice. Also, let's not forget that of all the recent musical directors he's certainly the only one who was actually in the biz in the '50s and '60s and should be capable of doing the period justice. I kind of like the idea of it not being a Bill Condon or Rob Marshall take on JERSEY BOYS (which I admit I have yet to see so I may not be grasping it's tone appropriately.)
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/07
I just hope this does not turn out to be like the version of 'Annie' that John Huston, who never directed a musical, created.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
"The Cheescurls: An American Jack Cheese"
I would pay the extra to see the 3D version. I must have watched their "Behind the Grater" a dozen times.
Let's not forget the unique genre that Jersey Boys exists in. It's a stage biopic, neither precisely a musical nor precisely not one. A play with lots of music. It owes much more to the screen biopics of the early 2000s than it does to musical theatre.
Eastwood's lack of musical theatre experience will not necessarily hurt him here, since the actual musical theatre content of Jersey Boys is debatable anyway.
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