Ryan Murphy talks THE PROM, A CHORUS LINE limited series, and GEORGIA MCBRIDE adaptation for Netflix

DEADLINE: Did you say you are doing a new film version of A Chorus Line? The original movie was not a critical or commercial hit.

MURPHY: Yeah. We’re trying a different approach with that, which we’re trying to do A Chorus Line as a limited series for Netflix. My favorite Broadway director of all time, producer, whatever, is Michael Bennett. So, it’s going to be A Chorus Line with all that wonderful music, but also the idea of how did he make A Chorus Line? And the thing that I was always very fascinated by, he did it for the love of the craft, and he took out a little office in Times Square and he took gypsies into those rooms and said tell me about your lives, and from those interview sessions came the music, and so I got the rights to all of those interviews. I have all of those tapes. I have all of that material about how was ‘What I Did For Love’, what is that about? How was ‘Dance: Ten, Looks: Three?’ So that’s a very interesting process that I’m going to start working on next year. I haven’t started that one yet but you know, I want to keep doing it. I’m doing another musical called The Legend Of Georgia McBride, also for Netflix, which is written by Matthew Lopez, who just wrote The Inheritance, and I’m producing that with Jim Parsons. So I have a passion for it, and I think people love musicals. I love that phrase ‘if you can’t say it, sing it’. I think there’s something very magical about that.

Full interview

Don't want to jump to any conclusions, but it sure sounds like we will get ourselves one of the best (if not the best) stage-to-screen musical adaptations since Hairspray. 12/11 cannot come soon enough!!!

The majority of the characters of A CHORUS LINE are composites of several people so it’s impossible to focus on a single dancer who’s story is being told by a character. A large part of Donna McKechnie’s life is in the Sheila character not just Cassie. Plus, many dancers in the original cast are not playing roles based on their own lives. Pamela Blair played Val, who is based on dancer Mitzi Hamilton and Richie is based on dancer Candy Brown, etc.

AEA AGMA SM said: "Since he seems intent on making it a full series, what could be a potentially cool idea is to do a "making of" style series leading up to opening night, and then have the series finale just be a full performance of the show itself."


That’s EXACTLY what I’ve been hoping they would do.

So glad to hear that The Prom might turn out to be really good, we need a really good musical film adaptation after the horror that was called Cats. I would love the miniseries to take on a Fosse/Verdon path and be about Michael Bennett and the people that inspired the creation of A Chorus Line. I'd watch it.