Lord of the Rings Musical to have World Premiere in Toronto!

[Michael Strathmore]

Posted: 3/15/05 at 11:01am

One ring to rule them all, I guess. Wow, at $27 million this is going to be huge.

--M--
Toronto Star article

[JakeB]

Posted: 3/15/05 at 11:06am

Will be really interested to see the development of this. Matthew Warchus is a great director.

[MagicToDo82]

Posted: 3/15/05 at 12:06pm

I've said it before and I'll say it again...this is either the greatest idea ever, or the absolute worst idea ever. Time will tell.

[Adam Chris]

Posted: 3/15/05 at 1:19pm

BOO. Terrible idea.

Can anyone say Titanic?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/15/05 at 1:39pm

"We have not attempted to pull the novel towards the standard conventions of musical theatre, but rather to expand those conventions so that they will accommodate Tolkien's material. As a result, we will be presenting a hybrid of text, physical theatre, music and spectacle never previously seen on this scale."

Sounds suspiciously like Notre Dame de Paris...

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 12:30am

I'm very skeptical about the idea -- how do you condense over 1200 pages of dense plot or 10 hours of nonstop filmic narrative into a 2-hour stage show with songs?

As a Torontonian who's a huge fan of both Lord of the Rings and musical theatre, however, I'll be first in line for tickets.

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 12:37am

Wow. that's either brilliant beyond reason or idiotic. Again, we shall just have to see how this one turns out. It has the potential to be phenomenal like the movies or horrible but I don't think it could find a happy medium. I'm very intrigued by this however and interested to see how this turns out.

[Plum]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 12:40am

*whips out LOTR voodoo doll*

*stabbity*

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 12:49am

I just can't believe they're investing $27 million and premiering it in Toronto. It'll surely be the biggest thing we've ever seen in this city, and a return to the days of Livent, when we had the world premieres of KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and RAGTIME.

They will no doubt condense and cut the storyline significantly (which will anger LOTR fans to no end). The question is, how will it still flow? The storyline is so intricately weaved together that pulling out one strand may unravel the entire thing.

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 12:51am

Its true, to make the movie they needed about 3-4 hours each and condensing the story to fit into a 2-3 hour time period for stage will unfortunately affect it horribly. You just cant cut down that story that much without destroying alot of the power behind it. Like I said, I'm interested to see how this turns out but frankly I think its going a bit too far, spending so much money on a Lord of the Rings musical.

[jesseeinstein]

Posted: 3/16/05 at 7:50am

it's officiial
Click Here!

[Juliet2170]

Posted: 3/17/05 at 4:54pm

oh my god you're kidding! haha it is just me, or should musicals only have limited story lines? compacting an adventure story like that in a play is already stretching it but musical?! i cant see it happening unless it was a spoof...

[FabalaCohen]

Posted: 3/17/05 at 4:59pm

I like the idea of the interchangable turntables.

But the adapting of some characters *coughcoughEowyncough* STILL worries me.