Travolta Snubs Edna — Page 2

". . it took something like 14 months for the creative team to bring him into the original project"

Heaven only knows why. He was awful.

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"Be Cool." 3 years ago. Sequel. Horrible. Not at "the beginning of his career."

Travolta was terrible so if, through some act of Satan himself, this movie actually gets made, he won't be missed by me.

I loved everything about the movie version, except for Travolta.
I guess he has heard that from so many sources...no wonder.

Oh for Heaven's sake. Travolta was hit, whether you people ever want to admit it or not. I saw "Hairspray" in the theater seven times in three different states and each and every time the crowds loved him. Big applause in his finale and bigger applause during the credits. With all due respect to the wonderful Mr. Fierstein, who I also saw onstage numerous times, he belongs on the stage. Travolta is a movie star. YOU slap Harvey in a dress and lipstick and then blow him up to 40 feet and project that voice in Dolby Digital Stereo all while spending your own $70 million in the process and then get back to me as to how it worked out for ya.

First, I hate sequels most of the time and I don't think I have ever seen a sequel to a musical that should have been made. That being said, if they can't get Travolta back then there is really no point.
I realize many Hairspray fans and a number of "theatre snobs" (and I use the term lovingly) did not like Travolta in the role, but to most everyone else he was a hit. He was why a lot of people went to see the movie and most people loved him in it. This isn't a role like James Bond where people will readily accept a different actor in the role on screen, and sequels that don't have the same cast as the first film have are almost never popular and often end up direct to video releases.
I am in favor of them scrapping the whole idea. A sequel will not be the cash cow that film makers are hoping it will be.

If you are a person who saw the original Hairspray movie with Divine, then you understand exactly why Travolta was awful. He just didn't have it. He was all wrong for the part, starting with that horrendous attempt at the accent and going all the way to his unsuccessful version of a woman in general.

Harvey was not bad as a Divine replacement, and I didn't see the rest of them, but Travolta ruined it.

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I actually enjoyed Travolta's performance as Edna. Yes, it was different, as was the entire film when compared to the Broadway production and the original film (or comparing just to the Broadway production to the original film). I found Travolta's Edna to be charming and vulnerable. What he lacked in authenticity, he made up for in charisma and his performance in You Can't Stop the Beat was utterly joyful. Was he the best Edna I've seen? Of course not. But he was FAR from the worst.

Personally, I don't believe a sequel is a good idea, but not all musical sequels turn out to be disasters. Let's not forget that both March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland were sequels to In Trousers.

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Wasn't he cast as a woman in Battlefield Earth?

He sounded like one.

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Grease 2 was a definite guilty pleasure when I was growing up.

if Travolta doesnt want to come back, and they dont want to recast the role, they can work it in that Edna doesnt have to really be there. They could put Tracy away at college, dorming or living with friends or something. It can be the seventies and she could be living in sin with a house full of free thinkers. Should they need some kind of Edna influence, a phone call to an imaginary person isnt hard to do either.

Unfortunately the problem isnt with how to make a sequel without Edna, the problem would be could you get backers without him and was Travolta a big box office draw or was it just a great ensemble cast with someone for everyone to like?

I dont think its that crazy to imagine a sequel without an Edna... a girl only "needs her mother" for so long. Setting the sequel even just three years later putting her in college leaves any number of ways or reasons why Tracys mom wouldnt need to be a major player... from studying abroad to married & on her own. Any return to Edna would have to make the character very different anyways having gone through her weight issues, shyness, protesting, etc. Shes important in the original because of her starkly different approach to life in comparison to her daughter.

Sh*t happens... when they couldnt get Sean Connery for the new Indiana Jones sequel they said he had died.

Oh they need Edna. They also need Harvey.


PS Edna's character is a protective Mother. Jewish Mothers are always involved with their kids. They would call daily and annoy the crap out of them. Edna would have to at least be calling daily annoying Tracy.

Updated On: 10/28/08 at 08:07 PM