Rob Marshall Directing Into the Woods Film For Disney- Page 6

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:10pm

On a side note, I'm surprised at the love that "park and bark" is getting for its novelty factor...

I learned the term early in my high school career, but I thought it was simply an idiosyncratic term used by my main director/teacher, who also used "schmacting" and "golden wombat" as important conceptual terms. Years later, I see it all over the internet, hear it in interviews, etc. The term was an actual plot point on GLEE for an episode. I see Sondheim using "park and bark" in his book.

I'm not saying this in a critical way, but in a curious one- is the term "park and bark" new to a lot of you, the way "golden wombat" would be? I'm just curious as to how this phrase gained footing over time.

[wskrs4]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:19pm

I would love to see Neil Patrick Harris as the Baker. Beyond that, I'm sort of afraid to see the casting.

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:26pm

wow 6 pages here on this in just 2 days...and to all u haters of Marshall, and to what he did to Chicago...get a life!...the film won OSCARS and it made alot of money, and gave some hope to those of us who had lost it that filmed musicals could be brought back in a sophisticated way!...

now this news is SO GOOD i have a reason to keep on living...and like others here have said...STAY HOME IF THIS UPSETS U SO MUCH...more room at the cineplex for me and for all us SONDHEIM lovers who want to see more SONDHEIM!...

BAD SONDHEIM (which actually does not exist), IS STILL BETTER THAN 99% OF WHAT PASSES FOR MUSICALS TODAY ANYWAY!

Updated On: 1/11/12 at 01:26 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:26pm

I hadn't heard the term ... then again, I didn't come of age in an era where there were quite so many "park and bark" songs in musicals to coin a phrase like that.

I remember the "sing one song then die" approach, taken right from the Les Miz spoof in Forbidden Broadway.

But in the past 25 years, there's been a whole lotta parking and barking going on.

I was more of the "power ballad" era myself. :0)

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:27pm

Is it a new term? It might be- but Sondheim used it to describe Ethel Merman, so I wonder if it dates back to her era.

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:31pm

I first heard it from an acting teacher in college thirty years ago. It wasn't necessarily a pejorative- he told an actress she was killing her laugh with all the extraneous business. "Stand there and say the line- sometimes all you need to do is park-n-bark."

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 1:33pm

Missed me entirely. Never heard it in college, community, or stock.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 7:04pm

I don't think the Narrator necessarily needs to be narrating to someone. Fairy tales are often narrated to the audience and I think the audience would accept it, even a modern one. I like the idea of the narrator being dragged on screen that was mentioned earlier.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 7:10pm

Everybody refers to the Ganz/Mandel screenplay as though it were freely available. Where can I find it?

[random person 112]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 7:18pm

Another worry about the Midnights, i fear those will end up on the cutting room floor despite their beauty. They are some of my favorite parts to

[JulesReverie]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 8:08pm

I see the cast being Kristen Wigg as The Baker's wife, Jason Segal as the Baker, Alison Brie as Cinderella, and Nathan Fillion as The Prince and we all know Marshall has his eye on either Nicole Kidman or Chatherine Zeta Jones as The Witch

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 8:18pm

Streisand for The Witch

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 8:34pm

The narrator pulled on screen? Like in the old Looney Tunes cartoons?? I'm not saying it couldn't work, but it makes the ENTIRE piece meta/tongue in cheek and I'm not sure that would work for overall tone.

Streisand might have made a FIIIIIIIIIIIERCE *insert finger wave* witch back in the day, but she's hardly a picture of "youth and beauty" despite her looking great for her age. Do you think she'd play ugly? or "Streisand ugly" with slightly frizzy hair and a small mole on her cheek?

[brian.klimowski]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 9:19pm

Sad. I doubt Disney can handle the depth to which this magnificent work can be taken. Please cast it well, at least!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 9:52pm

As far as Streisand goes, this film will be CGI/effects heavy. That's pretty much a given, so "fixing" her up wouldn't be a problem. I still think she could be fantastic.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 9:53pm

Someone PM me about the Ganz/Mandel screenplay, as apparently this is easy to find and yet i never have...

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 9:57pm

Even ON stage, that moment where the Giant picks up and kills the Narrator is SUPPOSED to be meta and tongue in cheek... for a few moments. It's a perfect example of fringe horror. At first it's funny, it's a clever gag... then the realism of the Narrator's death hits in, and it's genuinel disturbing.

The audience for the theoretical film should laugh when the Narrator is suddenly pulled into the shot for the first time... then stop laughing as he is dispatched in a not-so-cute way.

[binau]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 9:59pm

I still think even his death is meant to be a little funny. Maybe uncomfortably funny...but the squelch etc.. is kind of humorous. Similar to the humour of "Johanna" when Sweeney is slitting throats.

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 11:23pm

Both ABC/NBC have fairytale shows that probably wont weather the winter.

I'm not sure about this, finebydesign.

According to TVbythenumbers:

Despite facing the tail-end of the NFL playoff game, ABC freshman drama “Once Upon A Time” catapulted over its lead-in at 8:00 p.m. (+4.5 million viewers/+164% in AD18-49) and gained audience through its broadcast to finish a dominant No. 1 against its non-sports-driven competition on NBC and Fox. Sunday’s No. 1 entertainment show in Adults 18-49, ABC’s “Once Upon A Time” (3.7/ beat out the second hour of NBC’s 2-hour “Dateline” by 147% (1.5/4) and Fox’s first-run animated comedies (“The Simpsons”/”The Cleveland Show”) by 68% (2.2/5) from 8:00-9:00 p.m.

So, the show came back strong and seems to be gaining in popularity.

If it really takes off, it'd be smart of Disney to fast-track this one to capitalize on the "dark fairytale" theme that seems to be popular.

Knowing how much the company loves synergy...the cross-promotional and merchandise opportunity presented by this is right up their alley.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 11:41pm

I'd love to be order to get a Milky White Hamburger Happy Meal with a Bakers Wife wind-up toy inside.

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 11:46pm

LOL, Jordan!

Maybe not that far.

But, theme-park wise, I'm sure they'd have a field day with merchandise.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 4:07am

It'll have to be seriously reworked for film, but it's more than possible.

"Agony" can maybe take place at the palace in front of the King when he asks his sons if they've found any fair maidens around.

Act II is gonna be a walk in the park for a film version. They can add awesome special effects and action scenes. Just imagine the Baker and his wife running away from a giant's foot tearing up an entire village as they head out into the spooky, fog infested woods? It could be visual candy!

The first act is really all that need to be retooled, especially the "Midnight"s and the "I Know Things Now" kinda songs. Not to say they should be cut, because they are important, but there will be huge modifications to make them acceptable for a film version. I'm sure Sondheim is already up to the task. As mentioned before, he loves trying new things and making sure his film versions work.

I'm actually sort of excited. This has the most potential to be a huge hit out of all of Sondheim's work.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 5:00am

"Sweeney Todd's adaptation was atrocious. There was a "blanket rule" to cut all choral singing which eliminated the driving narration done by the "Greek chorus." Stupid, stupid move that killed the film. It took the "legend" out of Sweeney Todd and made it a small story with very little resonance, zero perspective, and removed about half the score. Epic fail."

I didn't hate Sweeney Todd, but I'm extremely mixed on it (though for the record I'm nearly as mixed on Chicago as an adaption... so take that as you will). But I know Sondheim (who isn't always right, and in this case I don't think he is) has said how he finds chorus singing so hard to take in musicals often ("Why would they all have the exact same thought?") and while he used it in Sweeney in the way you say, he did seem extremely pleased with the idea to cut it.

(Of course originally--and I thought even partially filmed--there were meant to be ghosts of the dead narrators doing the ballad bits).

Although in Look I Made a Hat Sondheim seems to be slightly more mixed on Sweeney the movie (in his one reference to it) than he was closer to its release, so maybe his almost over the top enthusiasm has waned some.

As to the Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel screenplay for Into the Woods that reportedly cut much of Act II, it IS floating out there but in 15 years or so I've never found it--certainly not online (if it is online I'd also love to read it). Copies of it have gone for a fairly high price, at least higher than I'd pay, on ebay etc (as have ones for the WIlliam Goldman musical from around the same time he was working on, Singing Out Loud, which I'd also love to see).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 5:10am

I had always heard that Park and Bark originated as a British expression... Hrmm

"Also the show is chuck-full of subplotting and crazy details that I find distracting. It just goes on and on and I'm at a loss as to who is our protagonist. This might play better in film, I don't know, but in musical theatre it gets cumbersome."

I actually agree with you that ITW is a flawed (brilliant) work. On the Sondheim forum it didn't come up as one of the fave three shows amongst most of the major posters in a poll, although many of us got into Sondheim via it (I was ten, and caught Act II on PBS randomly and then had to track down the full thing--found the London album at my library, but the program itself was near impossible to find at the time due to some weird rights issue they had giving Image Laserdisc the exclusive home entertainment rights for a while...)

That said, I also agree with Sondheim's statement that Act I is the best example of farce in musical theatre since Forum. It's BRILLIANT and the subplotting and crazy details are a huge part of this--without them a lot of that brilliance for that part of it would be lost.

The show is seen through the eyes of the Baker and the Baker's Wife primarily--they were written to be in most respects a contemporary seeming couple as a way to let the audience in--I don't get why they'd tell it from the Witche's perspective or why we need to have one clear protagonist at all. However, if you look at Sondheim's new opening song lyrics, I Wish, for the earlier proposed film version as published in Look I mAde a Hat, it's clear they did want to slightly make the focus more clean (the way the song is described going through the town, while a bit like Bell from Beauty and the Beast, sounds like it could have looked wonderful).

[jo]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 5:47am

Hugh Jackman and Debra Byrne sings a duet ( No One is Alone/Children Will Listen) from INTO THE WOODS --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W14-bH2fWpo