The Future of Movie Musicals & Film Adaptations of Musicals — Page 2

I don't agree with dave19 often but I completely agree on the Evita movie. For me it's one of the best stage to screen adaptions, beautiful visuals, strong cast and fleshes the story out and captures the epic nature of the story. In fact I think it works better on screen than on stage

Jeffrey and perfectliar - It's adorable that you think winning a Best Director Oscar is necessarily an indication of talent. Hooper and Attenborough really aren't very well respected among film scholars, and I personally think they're terrible directors (I haven't liked any of their movies). At least Columbus made Only the Lonely, but he's pretty terrible, too. All three made dreadful Broadway adaptations.

Can not believe Dave left out West Side Story.

I also believe the only problem about "Les Mis" was Crowe - but only vocally. I think he did good acting wise, up until his suicide.

I'm in the minority here, but I adored Seyfried as Cosette.

Crowe's singing was fine in the film. The hate he gets for this film is just over the top nonsense. The problem with Crowe wasn't his singing. It was his inability to act and sing at the same time.

And I thought Seyfried's acting was very good in Les Mis. But her singing was nails on chalkboard for me. And I really wanted to like her in this film. Her singing was very good in Mamma Mia though. The girl is not a soprano. Her lower register is where she sings best.

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"1) Are there any planned film adaptions of musicals coming soon that I'm just unaware of? 2) If not, what musical do you think SHOULD be next? And 3) What is your DREAM musical to be made into a movie? "

According to Wikipedia Jekyll & Hyde is working towards a film. The ENO production of Sunset Blvd. has renewed talks of a film adaptation being made of it with Glenn Close as a possible Norma. And then of course there's Barbra's perpetual Gypsy. All of these seem like long shots to me.

Good candidates for a successful modern movie musical (IMO have the best chances of mass appeal to modern movie audiences): Next to Normal, Spring Awakening (rumored w/ McG at one point), Aida,The Boy from Oz, Heathers, maybe Ghost Brothers of Darkland County?

Some contenders for Oscar-baity type properties to adapt to film: Kiss of the Spider Woman, City of Angels, Mack & Mabel, Candide, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, The Wild Party, Fun Home, Next to Normal, Caroline or Change, Floydd Collins.

My dream film is one that has also been revealed as a possibility as Rob Marshal's next musical and I want him to keep his hands off of it. Phyllis Rogers Stone's beautiful "Follies at the Roxy" post has only reinforced my belief that Follies belongs in the hands of Darren Aronofsky, David Fincher, or Alejandro González Iñárritu directors who don't come from the world of musical theatre but attack every project with a fine eye for detail and dramatic visual style that Follies calls for.

My dream cast is an embarrassment of riches that would be futile to assemble their paychecks would make the film impossible to shoot. One can dream though right?

Sally Durant Plummer- Kristin Chenoweth or Megan Mullally

Phyllis Rogers Stone- Michelle Pfeiffer or Cate Blanchett

Ben Stone- George Clooney or Kevin Spacey

Buddy Plummer- Kevin Kline or John C. Riley

Carlotta Campion- Cher

Stella Deems- Bette Midler

Roscoe- Plácido Domingo

Solange LaFitte- Liza Minelli

Hattie Walker- Angela Lansbury

Dimitri Wiseman- Donald Sutherland

Heidi Schiller- Shirley Jones

Emily Whitman- Debbie Reynolds

Theodore Whitman- Dick Van Dyke

Vincent- Ben Vereen

Vanessa- Chita Rivera

Dee Dee West- Charlotte d’Amboise

Christine Crane- Cady Huffman

Sandra Donovan- Karen Ziemba

Young Sally- Megan Hilty

Young Phyllis- Nina Arianda

Young Ben- Colin Donnell

Young Buddy- Jay Armstrong Johnson

Young Stella- Lindsey Mendez

Young Heidi- Betsy Wolfe

Young Hattie- Elizabeth Stanley

jpbran said: "hork said: "I'm still waiting for the In the Heights and American Idiot movies, although they couldn't possibly be as good as I want them to be, because Broadway adaptations never are (at least not modern ones).

The modern ones often can't compete because we have the original stage versions fresh in our mind when seeing the film adaptation, while many of us likely didn't see the original stage versions of the classics (WSS, Oklahoma, Gypsy, etc) and hold the films in high regard with little to compare. I'm sure if BWW was around when the film versions of most classic musicals were released, the nitpicking would have been pretty epic.

I don't think that's that much of a factor. We have revivals with which to compare screen adaptations. And the recent spate of Broadway adaptations have mostly failed even as films, not just as adaptations.

BakerWilliams said: "Audra McDonald will be in a film version of Hello Again

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Right--and I suspect we will see more similar low budget (and often direct to VOD) films of stage musicals like this--I mean, like them or not, who would have expected last year we got Last Five Years *and* Lucky Stiff of all things.

I don't see "Oliver!" mentioned here. Easily one of the best-directed film musicals, and a screenplay adaptation that improved on the source material.

Adaptations are never meant to improve on their source materials, they are only meant to find another way of telling the story.

"Adaptations are never meant to improve on their source materials, they are only meant to find another way of telling the story."

I would say that they are often meant to do exactly that. In interviews, Ernest Lehman plainly stated that he was improving what he found to be flaws in the stage versions of "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music" when he wrote the screenplays for their film versions, and Vernon Harris gave "Oliver" a heightened dramatic arc closer to that of the Dickens novel (and its David Lean film version) than to its original stage production.

I doubt Lionel Bart was trying to improve on Dickens and was indeed telling the story differently. No argument there.

As far as the "future" of the genre, as long as they're making money, more will be made.

I liked what Neil Meron said in his BWW interview about rooting for other projects that weren't his, such as "Grease Live," explaining that they always want them to do well, because if they don't, it's one more reason for studios not to make the next one. When a "competitor's" project is successful, it means it's more likely that his own future projects will get the green light. Makes perfect sense.

But the key is box office success, which is why you won't see an $80 million adaptation of "Follies" on the silver screen anytime soon. There's not a wide enough audience for it to turn a profit. If they could make it for $10 million (which is impossible), it would probably happen.

That doesn't mean the genre is dead or suffering, just that studios will look for hits. And if Follies ever gets made, it will need a star director and several older (but currently viable) box office stars in the major roles. Even then, that doesn't assure success. It's a tough sell: a "Midlife crisis" reunion of show people. But the name "Follies" alone and that subject matter won't draw big numbers all by themselves.

There are no guarantees when adapting to a different medium, on that we agree.