Update on "Carousel" Movie Musical

[Fan2]

Update on "Carousel" Movie Musical#1

Posted: 12/1/06 at 8:18pm

http://www.firstshowing.net/2006/11/13/hugh-jackman-updates-carousel-remake

>Hugh Jackman Updates Carousel Remake
November 13, 2006

Any fans of Hugh Jackman's musical theater career still looking for some more? Well, this may be a chance to see Jackman back singing on screen. When asked about the musical Carousel during the press junket for The Fountain, Hugh Jackman responded stating that they did get the rights for it and pre-production is under way.

“We just got the rights for it, so we're now finding director, writer, and I'm very excited about that.”<<

[CapnHook]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#1

Posted: 12/1/06 at 8:31pm

Old news, hun, do a search, please.

"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle

[TheatreDiva90016]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#2

Posted: 12/1/06 at 8:35pm

Oh good, I thought I was having Deja Vu.....

"TheatreDiva90016 - another good reason to frequent these boards less."<<>> “I hesitate to give this line of discussion the validation it so desperately craves by perpetuating it, but the light from logic is getting further and further away with your every successive post.” <<>> -whatever2

[roquat]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#3

Posted: 12/1/06 at 10:48pm

Well, it would have to be better than the unwatchable old Shirley Jones version...

I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

[wickedfan]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#4

Posted: 12/1/06 at 10:50pm

Unwatchable? Really? I actually quite enjoy the the film version of Carousel, but to each his own. For truly unwatchable, there's A Chorus Line, High School Musical and Teen Witch.

"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.

[Jazzysuite82]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#5

Posted: 12/1/06 at 11:46pm

You think Hugh Jackman and anyone in hollywood now doing their own singing is going to be better than the original? I can't stand Hugh Jackman's voice. Why remake this of all things? Why not something that REALLY needs it like A Chorus Line or A Little Night Music. Here's a thought...how about something that hasn't been made into a movie yet.

[toomeytwopiece]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#6

Posted: 12/2/06 at 1:51am

Jackman is a fine actor but he isn't right for that role... he's too sensitive and charming... and warm... maybe he'll change my mind. He's right for it visually - he might be a tad too old actually, I know he claims to be 37 or 38, but please...

and he won't be singing it like John Raitt did

[Jazzysuite82]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#7

Posted: 12/2/06 at 3:08am

too sensitive and charming?! Did you see X-Men? As Sir Lawrence Olivier would say "My dear boy, why don't you try acting?"

[sing_dance_love]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#8

Posted: 12/2/06 at 3:17am

Didn't he do Carousel in concert with Audra McDonald as Julie at like Carnegie Hall or something a few years ago?

Wherever it was i remember reading very very positive things about his performance, so i'm sure he'll be great. We can only wait and see. But how exciting if Audra got to be Julie?

"...and in a bed."

[kec]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#9

Posted: 12/2/06 at 3:32am

"Didn't he do Carousel in concert with Audra McDonald as Julie at like Carnegie Hall or something a few years ago? "

Yes, he did, and he did get a lot of good reviews. I do remember reading a rave review by Howard Kissel

[StageManager2]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#10

Posted: 12/2/06 at 4:59am

Personally, I think he's too old for the part. One pet-peeve I have is when actors are cast in roles obviously too young for them.

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia

[MrMidwest]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#11

Posted: 12/2/06 at 9:25am

I have a hard time imagining this being made into a new movie musical that a lot of people are going to be that interested in seeing.

"The gods who nurse this universe think little of mortals' cares. They sit in crowds on exclusive clouds and laugh at our love affairs. I might have had a real romance if they'd given me a chance. I loved him, but he didn't love me. I wanted him, but he didn't want me. Then the gods had a spree and indulged in another whim. Now he loves me, but I don't love him." - Cole Porter

[aspiringactress]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#12

Posted: 12/2/06 at 9:33am

I'm doing Carousel right now and I am SO sick of it...

I'm sure by the time this happens that won't be the case. I hope.

"We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in it's flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung, the dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future too." - Tom Stoppard, Shipwreck

[Unknown User]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#13

Posted: 12/2/06 at 9:41am

I think John Waters got it right: Why do remakes of good movies? Remake horrible movies. That way you have a shot of improving on the old film. C'mon Hugh, get the rights to Heaven's Gate. Remake The Swarm.

[best12bars]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#14

Posted: 12/2/06 at 9:47am

Carousel IS a horrible movie, and could use a good remake of this classic show...


...but I agree that I don't know who would go to see it at the multiplex.

"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."

---

blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22

[spiderdj82]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#15

Posted: 12/2/06 at 1:37pm

Agreed that CAROUSEL is a really bad movie. If they did a remake and did it closer to the original stage play . . . then by all means, give it a shot.

"They're eating her and then they're going to eat me. OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!" -Troll 2

[toomeytwopiece]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#16

Posted: 12/2/06 at 5:21pm

Jazzy,

"too sensitive and charming?! Did you see X-Men? As Sir Lawrence Olivier would say "My dear boy, why don't you try acting?"

yes, I have seen ALL the X-Men movies AND collected both Uncanny X-men and the Wolverine Comic for years... and yes, he was FAR too charming for that role... I think he was great - but for that character, as developed in the comics, he wasn't quite right..

and I HAVE tried acting... on Broadway, among other places, and people seem to think I am rather good at it :) so no worries there.

-BCR

[TomMonster]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#17

Posted: 12/2/06 at 5:22pm

And you are more than good at it, toomey! You're great at it!!

"It's not so much do what you like, as it is that you like what you do." SS

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana." GMarx

[toomeytwopiece]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#18

Posted: 12/2/06 at 5:24pm

LOL
you so sweet :)

that wasn't supposed to sound mean, my response, that is... it jazzy's comment just struck me... when people assume things about anyone here, it's usually assumed without knowing the background, facts, etc.

just symptomatic of our world in general I have certainly been guilty of it!

I love you, jazzy :)

[WalkOn]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#19

Posted: 12/2/06 at 5:46pm

Clearly I'm a fan of the musical CAROUSEL.

I don't find the film version all that horrible...but I don't find it all that great either. It certainly didn't do justice to the original material.

I'd like to see Jackman take a crack at a new version of the film. I'd welcome a new generation of movie goers discovering CAROUSEL.

For me, in the best of all possible worlds, the '94 Lincoln center revival would have preserved...but I'll have to be content with my memories.

I wish Hugh Jackman all the luck in the world!

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart; and you'll never walk alone.

[roquat]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#20

Posted: 12/2/06 at 5:55pm

What's really infuriating is that CAROUSEL is the R & H property that's most natural for screen adaptation--it has a bold, passionate, Hollywood-sized story and score, with larger-than-life characters and fantastic settings. (Listen to the end of the "Bench Scene"--can't you just see Billy and Julie silhouetted against a gigantic sunset a la "Gone With the Wind" as they kiss?) Henry King filmed it in a flat, stagy style on ugly studio sets in watered-down colors, with undirected and/or miscast performers wandering through their roles. It's a criminal wimp-out.

I agree that it would need a major selling job to get by today, even if it were filmed brilliantly--far fewer people would sympathize with Billy at all today, with domestic violence a far more visible issue.

I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

[jo]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#21

Posted: 12/2/06 at 6:13pm

Is Hugh Jackman right for the role?

I'd like to share excerpts from from Ben Brantley's rave review(NYTimes) of the stage concert version at Carnegie Hall in 2002.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9C04EED7153DF93BA35755C0A9649C8B63

"THEATER REVIEW; A Barker, a Mill Worker and Oh, That Fatal Chemistry
Print Save

By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: June 8, 2002, Saturday

Certain people, no matter what their size, seem to turn into giants when they set foot onstage. The Australian actor Hugh Jackman, as it happens, is a tall man. But that doesn't account for his towering presence on Thursday night at Carnegie Hall. It's not that Mr. Jackman, a fledgling movie star ('Kate and Leopold,' 'X-Men'), is larger than life. It's that he makes real life look large.

This fine alchemy was a distinct asset in the stirring concert presentation of 'Carousel,' a one-night benefit for Carnegie Hall. Mr. Jackman, a vibrant Curly in the recent London revival of 'Oklahoma!,' can switch on an embattled air of virility that, combined with his conversational way with a song, makes him a natural for the hardy heroes of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

With the incomparable Audra McDonald playing Julie Jordan to Mr. Jackman's Billy Bigelow, 'If I Loved You' -- that great yearning duet of awkward courtship -- never sounded more affecting. The tentativeness, the passion, the sweetness and the potential danger: all those elements seemed newly fresh as a rough-hewn carousel barker and a virginal factory worker once again resisted and succumbed to the laws of attraction in a coastal town in Maine in the 19th century...


Mr. Jackman's voice may not have the operatic richness of Ms. McDonald's, but it's a clean and deeply expressive instrument that brought an almost Shakespearean psychological intricacy to Billy's 'Soliloquy.' It must have been a bit daunting for Mr. Jackman to have John Raitt, the original Billy Bigelow of 1945, introduce the evening.

But without eclipsing Mr. Raitt's fully fleshed rendering of the character, which still leaps out at you from the first cast recording, Mr. Jackman put his own stamp on the role of a man of fatally divided impulses. He is indeed made for the musical stage. Let's hope that Hollywood doesn't make a prisoner of him."


Jo

[jo]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#22

Posted: 12/2/06 at 6:32pm

Modern movie audiences seem to shy away from musicals, it is said, because they do not appreciate why someone would just break into a song, without reason.

Maybe this is one aspect that Hugh's talent can mitigate. Ben Brantley cites Hugh's "conversational way with a song" (in the Carousel review) while Adam Guettel ( who happens to be Richard Rodgers's grandson) shares a similar view about Hugh.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/chicago/ch22.html

"...Guettel said that the best piece of musical theater he's ever seen was Trevor Nunn's 1998 London production of Oklahoma!. He praised Hugh Jackman's ability in the role of Curly to transition naturally between dialogue and song, helping the audience to believe a person can legitimately express themselves through music as well as speech..."

Btw, the remake is going to be produced by Hugh and his production company, jointly with Fox 2000 ( which predecessor company produced practically all the movie versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals). Hugh's knowledge of musical theatre and movie-making and Fox's experience with movie musicals (they did make the highest-grossing musical in current dollars, THE SOUND OF MUSIC) and movies, in general, hopefully can work together in bringing forth an excellent remake for a modern audience.

Will and can they modernize it for today's audiences?

[roquat]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#23

Posted: 12/2/06 at 6:41pm

That's the problem--I don't see how you can "modernize" it without destroying it. As soon as Billy hit Julie every woman in the audience would be screaming for her to leave him at once, and they'd probably cheer when he got killed. And to modern ears "What's the Use of Wonderin'" seems less like nobility and more like masochism. To say nothing of "It is possible, dear, for someone to hit you...very hard...and not hurt at all." Ick. I love CAROUSEL, but there's no getting away from the fact that those moments rankle (and not in a good way.)

I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

re: Update on 'Carousel' Movie Musical#24

Posted: 12/2/06 at 6:51pm

wickedfan,

You did not just go there with Teen Witch. I think that movie is a musical classic if only for Sonheim's ingenious work in the song "Top That".

Akiva