What book/movie would make a great musical?- Page 2

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 3:43am

gypsy101 you know you're right about how repetitive that series is. Especially the first few books.

If someone was going to adapt it into a more condensed medium it might be advisable to take the characters and style and create an entirely new story, chucking the specific aspects of each book in favor of a less episodic narrative. Even if they do act one based on book one and the second maybe the later book set in the hotel (#12 I think but can't recall the name offhand). The last book was set on an island or something and the ending was very ambiguous so they could really do whatever.

Oy I am ranting! I used to love those books though and stylistically I think they could make a fascinating movie or musical but what they did with the Jim Carrey adaptation was a bad route unless they were committed to a franchise of the entire saga.

[¿Macavity?]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 3:58am

JoseLee_ said: "Precious

 

"

That would be a tough 2 hours and 30 minutes... What a sad story! 

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 5:15am

I think that Gone With The Wind at the Beaumont will be terribly interesting and the fact that it is a musical is very intriguing. The workshop is still over the four hour mark so I hope they can trim some of the fat.

 

I would like to see Running With Scissors as a musical. If they can do it with Fun Home....... 

[astromiami]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:54am

Some of what is being suggested have already been made into musicals. Specifically The Man Who Came to Dinner and Gone with the Wind. 

[astromiami]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:54am

Some of what is being suggested have already been made into musicals. Specifically The Man Who Came to Dinner and Gone with the Wind. 

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 10:33am

Is a Gone With the Wind musical being workshopped? I haven't read anything about that. Who's composing it?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 11:25am

I've always felt that "The Mirror Has Two Faces" had potential to be adapted into a musical.

Has anyone tried to adapt Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" into a musical?

[devonian.t]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 11:33am

Fan123 said: "Momo or The Neverending Story (book, not film) by Michael Ende? Actually, musical theatre may not be the best medium for adapting these. I'd still be interested if anybody was trying it though. I hear there have been opera versions of both.

I work with a company that has considered adapting Momo.

 

 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 12:02pm

The marvelously entertaining noir Fritz Lang/Edward G Robinson/Joan Bennett "The Woman in the Window" based on JH Wallis's novel, Once Off Guard.   
 

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 12:06pm

Can I be the rather cynical one to jump in and ask how many of these ideas—a number of which I think are excellent, by the way—could ever be considered commercially viable? I recognize that the thread's title suggests that our intention here is to propose great musicals in an artistic sense—but I'm curious, what would be some works that would/could be great musicals in terms of commercial success? 

Updated On: 4/24/16 at 12:06 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 1:52pm

BroadwayConcierge, doesn't commercial value and viability of a show depend on how good the show turns out to be?  I doubt anyone, for instance, would have considered that a musical about the fight over whether the U.S. would assume the states' revolutionary war debt would be the biggest hit in recent memory.

And in turn doesn't potential value of a show's eventual success, commercial as well as artistic, and preferably both, at least begin with a vision of an idea of what might make a quality product?

 

Updated On: 4/24/16 at 01:52 PM

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 1:58pm

I remember Trevor Nunn directing "Gone With The Wind" on the West End a few years back with Jill Paice. Guess it wasn't ready?

 

I think that "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" would make a sweet musical. "American Hustle" could be interesting, if anything because a musical set in the 1970's would be so fun in Studio 54.

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 2:27pm

Wasn't the Gone With the Wind Musical a notorious disaster? I think it was called Scarlet at some point.

[Taryn]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 3:16pm

henrikegerman said: "BroadwayConcierge, doesn't commercial value and viability of a show depend on how good the show turns out to be? "

Definitely not.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 4:43pm

Fantod said: "Wasn't the Gone With the Wind Musical a notorious disaster? I think it was called Scarlet at some point."

There were actually two GONE WITH THE WIND musicals. One in the '70s with music by Harold Rome that played Japan, the West End and an LA tryout, and another in 2005ish by a Margaret something on the West End.

Both were disastrous, though the Rome version has some lovely music.

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 4:46pm

Ah yes, that's it. I'm not at home right now so I can't look, but I believe there might be a section on the Rome musical in Second Act Trouble (or it could be Not Since Carrie)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 4:57pm

No cast album of latest GWTW. Rome version had one but it was like the original Follies in that it should have been 2 l.p.'s and it was one. Much of the music went unrecorded. That version tried a US tour with  song revisions but died. Pernell Roberts was Rhett .

 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 6:15pm

LEMONADE

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 6:44pm

Either The Longest Day or The Vikings

 

Seriously, The Loved One

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:07pm

King Lear

[jo]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:18pm

Brave Sir Robin2 said: "I remember Trevor Nunn directing "Gone With The Wind" on the West End a few years back with Jill Paice. Guess it wasn't ready?"

 

 I did see that in London. I was impressed by the staging but I think the musical score could have been better tweaked .  Maybe someday Broadway investors can take a second look  ( if they managed to film it) as the material is more resonant with American audiences.

 

 

 

"

 

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:34pm

Robert Altman made a semi-obscure movie in 1979 called A Perfect Couple, which starred Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin.

In it, Alex Theodopolous, a repressed, middle-aged divorced U.S. Greek (who has moved back to the spacious estate of his autocratic immigrant father, who is also his boss in the family's successful antique importing business) meets a young singer, Sheila Shea (an Earth Mother/groupie type), through a dating service and becomes smitten. Their first date turns into an unmitigated disaster when they are caught in a thundershower during an outdoor concert, and Alex's car malfunctions. Twenty-something Sheila is also part of a traveling rock band which performs gigs in outdoor arenas around the country and lives a gypsy-like existence in a communal loft under their controlling leader. Alex joins them on the road and tries to fit into their communal lifestyle. Basically, the movie explores the idea of falling in love even though everything between the two of you seems wrong, as Alex and Sheila attempt to overcome cultural, age, and lifestyle differences and find happiness.

The band's live gigs were heavily featured in this movie -- they performed several musical numbers, which I love, but also which many critics decried as superfluous to the story. I'd update the setting to the present day, change it from a dating service to meeting online and then discovering how different they really are in real life, and re-position the musical numbers (with arrangements updated to reflect current styles of music) so that they comment on the plot, much like the "Kit Kat Klub" numbers in Cabaret comment on the events that precede them.

Commercial value? Eh, maybe not unless one put stars into it. But I'd like to do it. :)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:44pm

Fantod

 

The Japanese musical that started it all was called Scarlett. A cast album was done but all in Japanese. I read the song titles somewhere and it differed quite  a bit from the London one starring Harve Presnell 

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:46pm

A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD - just saw the movie again (the book is better) and think it could make a wonderful chamber piece in the style of PASSION.

 

[Broadway kid 2]

Posted: 4/24/16 at 9:48pm