Pippin: The...movie?

Redirected from a thread on IMDB musical boards. I don't think it's a secret after Chicago's success that Mirmax bought the rights to Pippin...but nothing's been done.

A lot of people have argued it couldn't work. My response?

"I think it could work but they'd have to alter it so that instead of it being a traveling group of players playing the same film over and over, it'd have to be like, a line of films about Pippin that they've made over and over and picked some actor off the streets to be him. It'd have to be like, a reality TV show-type style thing, which could either work incredibly well and be awesome and cool and very underground (ala Hedwig the Angry Inch) or be a really failed adaptation (ala Nine or Godspell).

An example of what I'm talking about can be seen here. VERY interesting take on the material:

http://www.youtube.com/user/wolczo#p/u/32/OEEKeWnq13U

Full thread and my full response can be seen here:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000027/thread/157759905?d=158225757&p=2#158225757

---

Rights are obtained all the time: for books, for stage shows. VERY often it's simply to keep some one else from doing so.

Can't tell you how many (new) book authors get all excited because some one optioned their work - only to realize they acted too soon and there is no real interest in a movie: just an interest to have control.

---

The take on "Magic to Do" is kind of interesting, but I'm not over the moon about how "Corner of the Sky" is sung by three competing Pippins. I'm also not quite sure how the concept would sustain itself without being able to watch the entire show, since I'm having some trouble envisioning a lot of the material.

But it's not really like "Chicago" was only a success due solely to Fosse, but that almost seemed to be Miramax's logic there. Really I don't expect to see a film version of "Pippin" any time soon.

---

I don't think Schwartz could stomach having Gilliam direct this. Fosse, would approve, but not Schwartz. Schwartz didn't like the darkness that Fosse brought to the production.

Ok, then I elect Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze to direct. Just please not Rob Marshall.

---

The movie would more than likely reflect the new sounds of the Papermill score, as that seems to be Schwartz's "revision" as of late, incorporating some of his lyric changes and drastic rewriting to many of the songs, so it's safe to say that the film wouldn't look anything like Fosse's Pippin.

However, that's a good thing, as Fosse's Pippin staging (meanign teh stage show, not that the film wouldn't include his additions to the script, which it probably would) is damn near unfilmable.

The licensed score now uses Fosse's script, but with Schwartz's original 70s score. Only through elaborate negotiations can one get the Papermill score for productions- and it uses so much click tracking for certain parts that it's hard to use then either.