In the Film Adaptation in Your Mind. . .- Page 3

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 12/3/14 at 10:51am

Here's my cast for a Ragtime movie:
Mother: Carey Mulligan
Coalhouse Walker, Jr.: Joshua Henry
Tateh: Ramin Karimloo
Father: Ewan McGregor
Mother's Younger Brother: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sarah: Patina Miller
Willie Conklin: Josh Brolin
Grandfather: Len Cariou
Harry Houdini: Bryce Pinkham
Booker T. Washington: Norm Lewis
Evelyn Nesbit: Betsy Wolfe
Emma Goldman: Victoria Clark
J.P. Morgan: Merwin Foard
Henry Ford: John Bolton Updated On: 12/3/14 at 10:51 AM

[Starship]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 4:46am

I'm still waiting for a Ragtime film. With 12 Years a Slave, and Selma behind us, I think Ragtime could really be a hit if done right. Still standing by my Tim Burton directing choice as the film needs a dark undertone to it.

Would love to see Lupita Nyong'o in it as Sarah, Hugh Jackman as Tateh, Harrison Ford as Grandfather, Michael Fassbender as Father, Vanessa Hudgens as Evelyn, and Idina Menzel as Mother, and Idris Elba or Norm Lewis as Booker. I think it definitely has an audience and has a truly beautiful score that with some book reworkings, could be a huge success. There's also a ridiculous amount of casting opportunities possible.

[Dave19]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 8:22am

I would love to see a film version of Miss Saigon which treats the material like it should, so extremely well sung, all the real emotions lie in the way it is sung with this material. I've posted about this before, but I would prefer a very filmic and theatrical, better than life approach for scenes like "The movie in my mind" and "Last night of the world". This could be a triumph of the fantasy. Because with this material, many scenes benefit from showing how the character actually experiences it, instead of trying to tone everything down like in Les Mis. For example the chorus after Thuy's death should be some chilling montage as that's the way it is in Kim's mind and in real life a chorus doesn't show up in your room after someone is shot. Make it big. Don't let her shoot him in an empty dark alley or little dirty room. In Kim's mind her whole world turns black right after it happened, so put her on a huge black space with a chorus of ghosts, intense lighting and heavenly effects. All scenes like "The Nightmare" could be very surreal and actually "nightmare-like". I imagine lots of editing, pre-recording of singing, maybe even voice-over singing without the character actually mouthing the words in certain scenes, because you see something else happen and lots of better than life indoor sets.

[LarryD2]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 8:29am

After her terrific performance in Into the Woods, I'd love to see what Emily Blunt would do with Mother in Ragtime.

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

Posted: 3/17/15 at 8:32am

A while back, I decided to take a crack at Jesus Christ Superstar, were it made today. I took into account both vocals/acting ability/best makeup of voices fitting together, and the nature of Hollywood musicals today. Musicals are risky business in Hollywood. When a movie musical succeeds, it is a fluke. It is the exception, not the rule. The only reason projects like Les Mis were being approved is because Mamma Mia! made 600 mil at the box office. When a movie musical is successful, others get made in its slipstream. They are looking for commercial success, not artistic quality; just ask any film critic, they'll agree. That means they're not gonna cast theater people, they're gonna look for stars. So, as a secondary goal, I wanted to pick stars who actually fit the roles instead of picking stars because they were stars, or picking people who would never get the roles in a realistic situation.

The Cast in Brief

Judas Iscariot - Jared Leto
Jesus of Nazareth - Lenny Kravitz
Mary Magdalene - Nicole Scherzinger
Caiaphas - Terrance Zdunich
Annas - Tom Jones
Simon Zealotes / Peter - Billie Joe Armstrong
Pontius Pilate - Danny Elfman
King Herod - Tim Curry

General Notes About Some Choices

* Jesus and Judas: The reason I went this route was not just because Kravitz and Leto are both mega-talented, but to take a poke at Hollywood's racially motivated casting practices, and also because this casting would resonate with die-hard Christians in a unique way. When Judas initially enters, he looks like the classic Renaissance image of Christ, bearded, blonde, with watery blue eyes and a serene countenance, which is something Hollywood, and consequently the public consciousness, has never gotten away from (historically and racially accurate casting is grist for another program entirely), but then the real Jesus (in the case of this dream cast, a black Jesus) shows up, and who you think is Jesus in the beginning is really Judas, and hence maybe the Antichrist, because it says in some interpretations of the Bible that the Antichrist shall be taken for Christ. Hot, huh? (I never miss an opportunity to screw with the audience's head. And the added advantage is, if Hollywood wouldn't let me get away with it, all I'd have to do is swap the two roles.)

* Annas: I wanted to go deliberately against the grain here in terms of casting, because the show has long taken on a shape of its own that kind of departs from the Bible, and one fact most productions ignore is that Annas was an older former High Priest (sort of like a professor emeritus) advising Caiaphas, who was his son-in-law. This background info isn't explicated in the show, but one can see echoes of it in "Then We Are Decided," the song for Caiaphas and Annas that was added to the 1973 film. The song is about Caiaphas trying to convince Annas that the council should take a firm stance on the Jesus issue and Annas attempting to dissuade his son-in-law's seemingly unsupported fears (until Caiaphas pulls the last card he has up his sleeve: "What about our priesthood?"), essentially a dialogue between a younger reactionary and an old hand who seems to want to let the matter die until he is reminded of his position, and that they have others to answer to if he's wrong. I had two criteria in mind -- it had to be someone older to bring age-appropriateness, and someone who could pull off the vocal of a "rock" Annas (like Brian Keith on the concept album) and not the countertenor of later renditions. As campy as the casting choice may seem, I settled on Tom Jones because he has the notes, he's going through a critically acclaimed "blues howler" period right now, and he looks significantly older now that he has ditched the dye -- a good fit for Annas as I envision him.

* Simon / Peter? : In American Idiot, Billie Joe exhibited an exuberant, at times militant, youthful idealism that is perfect for the Simon half of this role. It helps that Simon's song (and Peter's material as well) isn't particularly rangy (only newer performers in the role have really added any vocal acrobatics to the part of Simon; the performer on the concept album is positively boring by comparison). Now, you may be asking... why is this part combined with Peter's? Well, in Hollywood, it's common to telescope elements of a story for various reasons, and composite characters are a time-honored part of this practice. In this case, JCS has always had the problem that, aside from the leads, the characters tend to be one-note. Simon has one big moment in Act One, and leaves almost no impression except as a Jerry Rubin/Abbie Hoffman type figure (given the time it was written) to place Jesus firmly in the "we will not win power with hate" camp. Peter has a few big moments in Act Two as a faithless piece of crap who saves his own skin by denying he knows Jesus, and then wishing he could turn back the clock ("Could We Start Again..."), but is otherwise under-utilized. You almost don't know who either of these characters are onstage until their songs come along, and sometimes not even then. So it seems little trouble to combine two halves to create a whole character arc (and the best part for the Bible readers is it's not a major departure from their "accepted history" to do so): Simon, later called Peter, who has his own idea of who Jesus is and what he could mean to the people, but who swiftly learns that the price of power and glory is death; who loses faith, but will soon become a stabilizing force for the apostles. The real trick is conveying this without re-writing a word of the piece. :P

Herod: Ah, Tim Curry. The Herod you never knew you wanted, until you saw his name here. This came about when one day I read a casting notice for King Herod in a production of the show, and it hit me that the ad was pretty much describing Frank N. Furter without the drag. It would be relatively effortless for Tim to deliver a menacing/comic turn, perhaps even offer the definitive performance in that vein. It actually kind of helps that he walks with a cane now, older, less nimble than he used to be. That means, "Frank N. Furter rides again" or not, this Herod can't rely on the physicality and the comedy so many others have fallen back on. He's a sybaritic man gone to seed, shallow, inconsequential, as he should be. This would allow him to draw on what he brought to roles such as Pennywise or the Lord of Darkness from Legend, giving Herod quite a dangerous angle. If his health holds up, he would be fantastic.

Updated On: 3/17/15 at 08:32 AM

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 8:43am

Also keep in mind that just because you're famous, doesn't automatically guarantee a hit for every single movie. Just ask Johnny Depp who for every Pirates of the Caribbean comes Transcendence...

[Dave19]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 8:45am

I also would love to see a film version of Jekyll & Hyde.

Jekyll & Hyde: Jeremy Jordan (He can really sing the material and he can play the clean cut doctor as well as the psychopathic side of Hyde).

Lucy: Katharine McPhee

Emma: Laura Osnes

[Lovinbroadway2]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 9:50am

I want to see an adaptation of Sunday in the Park with George. And at the final note of the act-one "Sunday", the camera zooms out and we see the piece framed in a museum, and then the spectators looking at it, as George begins with, "Putting it Together" But I don't know where, "It's Hot Up Here" would go...