Thoughts on The Producers film

[Lorelai]

Posted: 3/28/04 at 1:29pm

I don't know if this was posted already. I totally agree with this writer, Eric Grode (from Playbill.com)



"I have said very little about the much-discussed "Producers" movie thus far. Why? Maybe it’s, in part, because I love the original movie and don’t particularly see the need, but I generally take a very skeptical approach to any huge-budget movie musical. For every "Chicago" or "Evita" that comes to fruition, there have been at least two "Rent," "Les Misérables," "Into the Woods" or "Urinetown" adaptations that get knocked around, generate 10,000 chat-room discussions and then disappear.

But news that surfaced in the last week has begun to convince me otherwise about "The Producers." In my opinion, the movie versions don’t really hit their stride until the star wattage gets calibrated to a realistic level. "Chicago" went through a dizzying number of huge names — Liza, Goldie, Babs, etc., etc. — for 27 years before settling on two legitimate A-listers (Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger), two mid-level people (John C. Reilly and Queen Latifah) and one in-betweener (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

So when Nicole Kidman joined Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the projected "Producers" cast, my reaction was fairly skeptical. All you need to do is cast John Travolta as Roger DeBris, Anthony Hopkins as Franz Liebkind and Hugh Jackman as Carmen Ghia, and you’ve got a star-studded megamusical that will never happen.

Not so fast, though. Yes, Kidman seems to be on board as Ulla. But Variety has reported that Gary Beach and Roger Bart will reprise their stage roles as Roger and Carmen, and Will Ferrell may take on the role of Franz. This changes everything: When you average out the two casts, this is actually a less glittery cast than "Chicago" ultimately ended up with. (It’s easy to forget, but Lane and Broderick really aren’t huge names outside the theatre community.) Fewer stars means a smaller budget, which greatly increases the odds of "The Producers" coming to multiplex near you."

[JakeB]

Posted: 3/28/04 at 1:35pm

Fewer stars also means bigger losses and less distribution.