Ragtime: Movie musical

[sfarr]

Posted: 7/8/20 at 6:50pm

I absolutely love Ragtime...

Thoughts on why they never made it into a movie musical? Do you think it's likely now that it is over 20 years old?

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 7/8/20 at 6:56pm

The Milos Forman adaptation of the novel is VERY well regarded so any movie musical would honestly be compared to it and likely unfavorable. That being said I actually think with some streamlining  it would make a very epic, cinematic (but expensive!) movie musical. 

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 7/8/20 at 8:42pm

I have been thinking a LOT about this show as of late and thinking how it would be prime material for a movie musical. Being that there are a lot of secondary characters with only a few songs or scenes like Nesbit, Hoodini, etc. it's made for big name cameo fonder for those big names that wanna be in it but don't wanna actually put in the effort to be IN it. What happens to Sarah and the aftermath is very timely for the world we are living in today though I have to wonder if people with their outrage and calls for "cancel culture" would have negative reactions to Coalhouse's response in act 2.

In the world today, I worry that some of the material will be misinterpreted by audiences or could end up misrepresented by a bad director and end up being a misfire. And I struggle with the desire to see one of my favorite works adapted and hoping for the best or hoping that they leave this particular show be and not touch it with a 20 foot poll that they might screw it up.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/8/20 at 8:46pm

sfarr said: "I absolutely love Ragtime...
Thoughts on why they never made it into a movie musical? Do you think it's likely now that it is over 20 years old?"

Likely? No. Would I like to see it? Yes.

Why did they never make a movie-musical? Because the original Broadway production was a colossal financial failure, the musical is highly theatrical in its narrative devices, and the Milos Foreman non-musical film was/is still recent enough (1981). At the time of the original Broadway production, movie-musicals weren't back in vogue yet. And the track-record for financially-successful movie-musicals with legit scores and serious source material are slim to none. It would require a director with REAL clout saying "I love Ragtime and I want to go out of my way to make a film of it."

[Jarethan]

Posted: 7/8/20 at 10:46pm

If not a film, why doesn't one of the networks take a chance and present this as one of their annual musical productions.  If they had the right, i.e., famous, cast, that might offset the fact that it is not a household name.  It would energize the TV musical simply by not being a predictable.

[Trousers]

Posted: 7/9/20 at 9:22am

FTLOG, please not Uma Thurman as Evelyn Nesbit.

Updated On: 7/9/20 at 09:22 AM

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 1/20/25 at 8:01am

I actually have an idea for how to approach the film. It would have this framing device where the little boy (Edgar) is decades later all grown up writing a book about his memories of the turn of the century while listening to ragtime music on vinyl. Thus, we get flashbacks to that time as he's writing it. Whenever narration lines are used, it would cut back to him writing them.

[FANtomFollies]

Posted: 1/20/25 at 8:13am

I wish Spielberg had chosen this as his movie musical instead of WSS.