Films That Should Be Stage Musicals

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 1/9/14 at 11:13pm

So Obviously, it's been getting on everyone's nerves lately that pretty much every single big movie out there is being turned into Broadway musicals.

There of course have been several successful ones (The Full Monty, The Producers, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Spamalot, Legally Blonde, Billy Elliot, Shrek, Once, Kinky Boots, etc.), and there also have been some flops (Big, Cry-Baby, 9 to 5, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Ghost, Leap of Faith, Big Fish, etc.), and some more ether in development right now, or even coming soon (Ever After, Rocky, Magic Mike, Mean Girls, The Princess Bride, Amelie, Honeymoon in Vegas, Groundhog Day, etc.)

Though with all of that said, even some of the older musicals were based on movies (The King & I, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Applause, A Little Night Music, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors, La Cage aux Folles, Sunset Boulevard, etc.), so I've decided to write about some films that I think should be made into stage musicals, and here they are!

50/50
*Book By Jeff Whitty
*Music By Robert Lopez
*Lyrics By Kristen Anderson-Lopez

Basquiat
*Book By Doug Wright
*Music & Lyrics By Lin-Manuel Miranda

Edward Scissorhands
*Music By Duncan Shiek
*Book & Lyrics By Steven Slater

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
*Book By Marsha Norman
*Music By Jeanine Tesori
*Lyrics By Amanda Green

For Love of the Game
*Book By David Lindsay-Abaire
*Music & Lyrics By Jason Robert Brown

The Help
*Music By Stephen Flaherty
*Book & Lyrics By Lynn Ahrens

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/159706/audra-mcdonald-patti-lupone-aaron-tveit-more-lead-broadwaycoms-dream-cast-for-the-help-the-musical/

Hugo
*Book By John Logan
*Music By George Stiles
*Lyrics By Anthony Drewe

Lovelace
*Book By Douglas Carter Beane
*Music & Lyrics By Benji Pasek & Justin Paul

Silver Linings Playbook
*Book By Harvey Fierstein
*Music & Lyrics By Nell Benjamin & Laurence O'Keefe

Sixteen Candles
*Music By Tom Kitt
*Book & Lyrics By Brian Yorky

So what do you all think of these ideas? What are some (non-musical) films you'd like to see be turned into a Broadway musical? Who would you like to do the scores?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/9/14 at 11:33pm

Midnight

Sullivan's Travels

The Lady Eve

Good Bye Lenin!

Moonstruck

Married to the Mob

Flirting With Disaster

Children of Paradise

The Awful Truth

Law of Desire

[jbroadway4]

Posted: 1/9/14 at 11:37pm

.Hocus Pocus (I've heard its in development, but here is my dream creative team)
Book By: Harvery Fierstein
Music By: Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

.Modern Family (Even though its a TV show)
Book By: the show's writers
Music By: David Yazbek

.Nightmare Before Christmas

.Frozen

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 2:05am

I recently rewatched Pretty Woman and it struck me how it has the potential to work as a musical comedy

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 2:35am

Fried Green Tomatoes
(Menken and Shwartz or Kitt and Yorkey)

[Dubliner]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:00am

August Rush - not a great movie but such great potential for a musical based around the derelict theatre.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 7:10am

Pete's Dragon. You take the film as is, re-add some cut portions of lyric that are on the soundtrack, and have the gimmick be that you don't see the dragon till the end of the show (you wonder if it's all in the kid's head), a conceit that was planned for the film but dropped once they saw Elliot's design and wanted to showcase him more as a character.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Honestly, I think this should have been Mel Brooks' first choice for "second show" way ahead of Young Frankenstein. As Gil Varod adeptly pointed out in his Broadway Abridged adaptation of the latter, Men in Tights is a logical choice for musicalization: a standard, coherent musical comedy ready plot with a sensible arc, four songs that are already part of the score, and larger-than life characters. Please, Mel, if you have anyone who's reading, don't let a Blazing Saddles musical tarnish everyone's good memories of you, and of the film. Make a sensible choice, replicate The Producers' success more closely, and give one of your less-known films a second lease on life. It helps that the Robin Hood market is one that isn't really cornered in musical theater. No one's done a major musical of Robin Hood, played straight or comedically, since that operetta back in the late 1890s. You could be the only one on the market with no competitors. This would do you a world of good compared to $450 tickets for jokes people laugh at before they come along, occasionally interrupted by songs.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 7:39am

And before anyone chimes in, no, Robin and the Seven Hoods doesn't count. It was a flop.

[Colle]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 1:31pm

Either "Snow White and the Huntsman" or "Mirror, Mirror." If done well, I think either of those "Snow White" movies do have potential on stage.

[dreaming]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 1:34pm

I want "Fried Green Tomatoes" but I think I'd like Tesori and Kron to re-team and write it. (Maybe Fannie Flagg could co write the book.)

[Jonwo]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 1:51pm

Men in Tights I think could work although they'd to rework some of the jokes as some of them have dated especially the Kevin Costner accent joke.

I'm intrigued how School of Rock would work as a musical, I think it should have an original score rather than existing rock songs, Andrew Lloyd Webber is producing but I think he should co-compose it with someone like Tim Minchin.

Updated On: 1/10/14 at 01:51 PM

[hanschens]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 1:52pm

Personally I'd really like to see the movie Truly Madly Deeply turned into a musical, or even a 'play with music' like PATSC.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 2:16pm

Heart and Souls
All About My Mother
Too Many Crooks
My Best Friend's Wedding
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[SidebySidebyLogan]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 3:04pm

A League of Their Own
Weird Science - with a David Yazbeck score
The Warriors - with a Ryan Scott Oliver score
Practical Magic - with a Jeanine Tesori score
Ruthless People
Mrs. Doubtfire - with a Pasek and Paul score
For the Boys (though this one is musical but I love it!)
High Anxiety - another Brooks musical I'd like to see before Blazing Saddles
Haunted Honeymoon
The Little Rascals
Weekend at Bernie's
The Shining - but maybe as an opera instead

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 3:23pm

"O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

This is already in development. They are courting and trying out different writing teams right now, as they'll be using an original book and score based on and inspired by the movie -- why they don't use the original music from the movie is beyond me.

No idea if it's public knowledge or not, but I guess it is now. We'll see if anything ever comes of it.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 3:47pm

ENCHANTED
MOULIN ROUGE
WHITE NIGHTS

And...

DIRTY DANCING... UMMM...
FOOTLOOSE... Oh.
FLASHDANCE... ???
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER... Wait.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 3:54pm

Men in Tights I think could work although they'd to rework some of the jokes as some of them have dated especially the Kevin Costner accent joke.

Same as eliminating L.S.D. from The Producers. And not that hard a job.

Posted: 1/10/14 at 3:57pm

I've always loved the idea of HOLES as a musical, though I'm not sure it would work. Maybe they could have modern music for the camp scenes and really lush musical-theatery sound for the flashbacks with Sam & Katherine and Madame Zeroni.

It is based on a book though, so it might not count in this context.

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:03pm

I've also thought about a musical of Under the Tuscan Sun.

[Whatshisname]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:13pm

Defending Your Life

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:28pm

Freaky Friday

Book: Mary Rodgers Guettel
Music: Adam Guettel
Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Director: ?

Updated On: 1/10/14 at 04:28 PM

[NewSynchopation]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:30pm

Ahrens and Flaherty should just do everything (or Jeanine Tesori)

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 4:38pm

'Defending Your Life'

I've thought for YEARS that this would be a wonderful musical.

[SidebySidebyLogan]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 5:13pm

Dangerous Liaisons - Yes I stole that from Smash but give it to Adam Guettel and it could be a dark, gorgeous masterpiece.
Mannequin
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Nightmare on Elm St.
Bewitched (based on the tv show not the God awful movie)
Bruce Almighty
She Devil
Death Becomes Her
Tootsie
The Big Chill
Romancing the Stone
God's Behaving Badly
A James Bond Musical - A terrible idea but I just want a stage diva to sing Nobody Does It Better and Skyfall

Was going to add Defending Your LIfe but you beat me to it!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/10/14 at 8:14pm

I was asked to collaborate on a musical version of THE BIG CHILL, but I felt then and I feel now that it is already a musical. Yes, it's more Brechtian than R&H, but the emotional high points are already musicalized with pop songs from the characters' youths.

I feel the same about my favorite film, MURIEL'S WEDDING: it's already an ABBA musical much better than MAMMA, MIA!, even if, with one exception, the characters don't do the singing.