Movie Musicals You Wish They Would Do Again & Right This Time- Page 2

[legally_popular]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 12:09am

Evita. And Madonna stays far, far away from it.

I'd say Annie too. I actually hate the movie, but like the TV version sort of. I'd keep Victor Garbor as Warbucks, Audra McDonald as Grace, Kristin Chenoweth as Lily St. Regis, and throw in Bernadette Peters as Hannigan.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 12:48am

Paint Your Wagon

Just don't let Clint Eastwood direct it.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 12:54am

EVITA

Take out the recitative, keep the main songs, add spoken dialog and more characters and it could be good. I don't think a direct translation would ever work as a movie. For one, the wall-to-wall singing gets tiresome on film. It's akin to being bombarded with CGI effects. It's too much for the senses.

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:04am

A Chorus Line. The revival broke my heart, and not in a good way.

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:05am

Updated On: 4/3/10 at 01:05 AM

[SweeneyPhanatic]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:23am

I'll add my vote for GYPSY, and if not as a feature-film, then as a video of a live performance (supposedly the Tyne Daly archive tape is really good, can we have that, please?). There are different things I love about both movie versions, but I'm always so bored halfway through the first half of both of them! A video of this last revival would have been lovely, but obviously nobody with the $$ thought so.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:38am

Guys and Dolls! Yes! They chose "Pet Me, Poppa" and "A Woman in Love" over "A Bushel and a Peck" and "I've Never Been in Love Before"? WTF!?!

[rjjn]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:40am

I agree with Rent and Gypsy.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:44am

Carousel, Gypsy and Tommy.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 1:53am

I don't see the need for a Gypsy remake. I'm quite content with the Bette Midler Gypsy which is one of my favorite movie musical adaptations because it's so faithful to the stage version.

There are some movie musicals that I'm grateful for. Especially Cabaret. Yes, I would have preferred an adaptation closer to the stage version, but if it weren't for the original movie we wouldn't have "Mein Herr" and "Maybe This Time". I enjoy those songs being interpolated into stage versions and we wouldn't have them if the Fosse film hadn't come about.

[Tom's Cat]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 6:46am

Phantom of the Opera. I love the show, despise the film.

[madbrian]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 7:30am

I agree with many of the prior suggestions, specifically: Mame, A Chorus Line, Camelot, and Guys and Dolls.

I would also add On The Town to the list.

[Byron Abens]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 3:30pm

I'll agree with A Chorus Line. As many of the original cast stated in the book On the Line, when you watch the opening of the Tony's when they performed the opening number, you could see that Bennett was already planning the film in his head. Too bad it got into the hands of Mr. Attenborough.

[seaweedjstubbs]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 6:54pm

THE WIZ. The stage show is so funny and full of life. The movie can put you to sleep! Diana Ross cracks me up though! Anytime she screams someone's name, I laugh really hard (MS ONEEEEEE!!!!). She was trying WAY too hard to be serious. It's THE WIZ. It's not THAT serious.......There are parts of the movie which I enjoy, but overall, it's really boring. I'd LOVE to see a remake!

(And I echo the LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS request! Sadly, I think this is the closest that we're gonna get: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS6xpyinTI

[legallysam]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 7:03pm

Hair!

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 8:37pm

On the Town.

Butchery (which most Gene Kelly versions of stage plays were).

[raulmark]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 9:08pm

Hair
A Chorus Line
A Little Night Music (actually it's on my Netflix Que, but from the youtube clips I have seen, I'm sure I won't like it) haha

btw, I actually enjoyed the movie version of Phanthom better than the show..go figure

[SharpCookies]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 10:56pm

[i]Guys and Dolls! Yes! They chose "Pet Me Poppa" and "A Woman in Love" over "Bushel and a Peck" and "I've Never Been in Love Before"? WTF!?![/i]

I actually like "A Woman In Love". A lot. Though I do also enjoy "I've Never Been in Love Before".

Though I did not hate the movie, I actually enjoyed it and still enjoy it now after being a part of my school's production of it, I would enjoy a Guys and Dolls remake. From the clips I saw on youtube I think Gypsy could be something to remake, and The Producers, but maybe just a filmed version of it being on stage. I liked the movie but I could tell it was much more suited for a stage.

[zooxanthellae]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 11:02pm

Sweeney Todd - I wish they had taken a more realistic approach such as it was originally intended to be when Meryl Streep was rumored for Lovett.

A Little Night Music - Amazing show, but the film is a mess! I mean Liz Taylor is visually loosing and gaining weight from scene to scene. I think they should have made an adaptation that stands totally alone from the stage show, but retains Sondheim's charm and wit.


I honestly can't believe people are mentioning West Side Story and Cabaret; in my opinion, they two of the most perfect film adaptations of all time

[Shannon Bo Dannon]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 11:04pm

I totally agree with Hair! And pretty much all of these, actually.

[Byron Abens]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 11:06pm

SharpCookies, if they had filmed The Producers on stage it wouldn't look all that much different than what the movie adaptation looks like, which was one of the big criticism lobbed at Stroman in the reviews. Even Nathan Lane commented on how stagey the film looked after the release. If I remember correctly he called it "the most expensive Lincoln Center archive recording ever done."

[SharpCookies]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 11:10pm

But it would probably look better ON a stage, though... but if they are so similar then I suppose a redo of The Producers would be pointless.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/16/09 at 11:30pm

I'm fine with The Producers. But, I would like to see a directors cut released some day with all of the musical numbers included in the deleted scenes restored.

A directors cut of The Fantaskicks would also be cool. It's a pretty good adaption of the stage version, but all of the best stuff is in the deleted scenes.

[little_sally]

Posted: 5/17/09 at 12:24am

The first thing that popped into my head was Rent. I especially agree with whomever said to do it without the original cast.

[dayao]

Posted: 5/17/09 at 12:26am

The problem with THE PRODUCERS is that the stage musical pales by comparison to the far superior original 1968 film which won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. The 1968 film, which starred the incomparable Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, was not a musical but featured about 3 songs, two of which, "Springtime for Hitler" and Prisoners of Love", were retained for and are the best songs in the stage adaptation. A third song, "Love Power", was done hilariously by Dick Shawn in the film but it was not composed by Mel Brooks and the character Shawn played in the film was changed for the stage musical. I think the inferior stage musical will always be fun to experience where it clearly belongs, on a stage but no re filming of the musical will ever solve the problem with the recent film version in that the story sinks like a lead balloon under the weight of the songs on film, where the tighter, funnier 1968 screenplay clearly works better as a motion picture. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are great on the stage but even they look like amateurs in these roles when compared to Mostel and Wilder. The 1968 film will always be the preferred film version of THE PRODUCERS.