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Movie that would make great musical adaptation

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#1

Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 5:46am

Many great musicals are adapted from movies, not just stage versions of movies, but original theatrical works derived from cinematic inspiration. She Loves Me, Hello Again, or A Little Night Music, are examples of true ADAPTATIONS. Somewhere between "City of Angels" and "Nine" I think a great musical version of Pleasantville is waiting to be written. It has the emotion to motivate song, the frivolity to constitute a fun night of theater, the technical demands to ensure a spectacle. It would defiantly be difficult to produce, but it could result in an amazing show. Just a thought. What do you think??
I Wish... Madeline Kahn could have played the Witch in Into the Woods. She would have rocked!
#2

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 7:13am

Some off-beat choices:

I wonder if there isn't some wonderful, weird Julie Taymor-ish way to adapt THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH or CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. I always thought JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRINGS would be great for an operatic treatment (LUCY SIMON, maybe or those guys who wrote LES MIZ). SAVED! would make a great little musical comedy, too.

TT
"Me flunk English? That's unpossible!" - Ralph Wiggum
#3

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 7:25am

I've often thought "The Way We Were" would make a great musical but I don't think anyone could handle not having Streisand and Redford.

www.GreatestStar.blogspot.com
#5

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 9:57am

Since they're hitting the 80's with "The Wedding Singer," why not a Brat Pack musical like "The Breakfast Club." You could have a soliloquy for each of the main characters as well as some fun group numbers in there.

#6

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

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

Saved, The Breakfast club, and Pleasantville would be cool. I think saved would be cool off-bway and I think The breakfast club would be a huge hit.

"If we don't live happily ever after at least we survive until the end of the week!" -Kermit the frog "I need the money... it costs a lot to look this cheap!" -Dolly P. "Oh please, Over at 'Gypsy' Patti LuPone hasn't even alienated her first daughter yet!" Mary Testa in "Xanadu" "...Like a drunk Chita Rivera!" Robin de Jesus in "In the Heights"

"B*tch, I don't know your life." -Xanadu After that if he still doesn't understand why you were uncomfortable and are now infuriated, kick him again but this time with Jazz Hands!!! -KillerTofu
#8

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 11:21am

Heart and Souls
Too Many Crooks (the original version of Ruthless People)

I really can't see The Breakfast Club as a hit musical. Maybe as a small intimate Off-Broadway production, but the cast is too small for Broadway houses and the lack of sets and locales would be tough to attract tourists. Pretty in Pink, however, could be a possibility.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#10

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 2:12pm

Randy Newman? He wrote the score for the movie, so why not? He writes very tongue-in-cheek songs, and that pretty much suits "Pleasantville" to a T.

I always wanted "To Kill a Mockingbird" to become musicalized. Give it to Michael John LaChiusa or Tesori and Kushner again.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to musicalize "Gone With the Wind". And it's going to sound very much like the old musicals from the '30s-'50s, with a bit of modern melodies interwoven in there as well (but I'm planning for it to be a full 22-piece orchestra with no synth duplications).
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#12

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 2:28pm

There was a musical version of "Gone with the Wind" back in the 70s starring Pernell Roberts and Lesley Ann Warren that was a huge flop. It played in LA and San Francisco, but never made it to Broadway (I believe it also played Japan, as well). Ken Mandelbaum devotes a chapter to it in "Not Since Carrie."
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#14

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 2:42pm

Margo beat me to it. More people should read "Not Since Carrie," it's such a great read, one can only hope Mandelbaum writes a second part.
A movie I think would make a great musical is "The Hours." If it were adapted by a great director like Hal Prince or Tommy Tune, and composed by Sondheim, it'd be heaven.
I am also waiting for someone to do a decent adaptation of one of my favorite movies of all time: All About Eve. I'm sorry but I believe Applause is a rather mediocre show.
EDIT: I'm aware that "The Hours" was a novel before a movie, but David Hare wrote some great lines for the movie that are missing in the book.

Updated On: 3/15/06 at 02:42 PM

#15

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 2:51pm

Applause is a mediocre show -- one of the 4 or 5 worst Best Musical Tony winners. The film is a bonafide classic, but I'm not sure how much interest there would be in another musical version of it.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#16

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 2:58pm

I think a musical version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" would be awesome.

And I've always said "Driving Miss Daisy" would make a good musical. Let Jason Robert Brown do the music, since he and Alfred Uhry collaborate so well together.
#18

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 3:11pm

Someone is either already working on Pleasantville or else the rights are completely tied up.

There are a veritable truckload of film-to-musical projects in the works right now and some of them are god-awful.
#19

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

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

The problem with recent movies adapted for the stage is that they rely on the name of the film to make money. They want the audience to see the same movie but with some songs thrown here and there. Gone are the great adaptations like A Little Night Music, Passion, Nine, and Grand Hotel. Tommy Tune, Hal Prince, Sondheim, and Yeston merely used the movies as the basis but they built shows that stood on their own and in some cases became more memorable than the movies themselves.

Updated On: 3/15/06 at 03:15 PM

#21

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 3:38pm

There was also a West End production of Gone With the Wind with Harve Presnell. I have the LP. If I remember correctly, there was a live horse used in the production that crapped on stage during a performance? I believe Noel Coward (?) had a witty remark about it with regards to the girl who played Bonnie. It's been a while since I read about it. Harve's niece and I were friends in the late 80s and I always think of her when I listen to the LP.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#23

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 3:55pm

I'm going to go with 'Pleasantville'. There's a really "pleasant" story there and the possibility for a GORGEOUS score.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
#24

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 4:03pm

I have never, ever been able to sit through the movie Pleasantville. I think it's dreadfully boring. I mean, I try, because I still haven't figured out exactly what the movie is about (something about two kids getting sucked into the TV and teaching everyone that it's better to be in color than in black and white).

I think there's a CD of the Japanese version of Gone With the Wind (called Scarlett, is it? or is that just the "Sequel movie") available. Interesting.

Josh, I don't think a flop musical version nobody's ever heard of should deter you!
yr ronin,
joey
#25

re: Movie that would make great musical adaptation

Posted: 3/15/06 at 8:03pm

I saw Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway again the other day, and it just screamed musical to me.

The dialogue is witty, the characters are colorful and poignant (even the dumbbell actress played by Jennifer Tilly!) and it could have a great 20s pastiche score. And of course, it's set in the theatre world. (Anyone for Debra Monk as Helen Sinclair?)

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