With Rock of Ages opening on Friday, I got to thinking about some of the more recent movie adaptations of musicals — those from 1980 on (sorry, Grease). Though there are purists who will always prefer Broadway, a lot of shows have inspired entertaining, sometimes even award-worthy, movies, like Hairspray, Chicago, and Dreamgirls. Click through to see all the movies and let us know if we forgot to mention your favorite!
After Mamma Mia!'s global earnings of $600 million last year, Universal may be looking toward Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber for its next movie musical success. The studio is apparently developing an adaptation of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar with an interesting directorial choice: 500 Days of Summer director Marc Webb. Here's more:
The story . . . is generally is seen as decidedly a product of the '70s, with some characters played as hippies. And Webb, well, he's a product of the modern era, fashioning a career out of stylish but emotionally potent music videos for the likes of Green Day (and then, of course, the musical melancholy of Summer).
But Webb has long had an affinity for the project, a rock opera that (perhaps a little like parts of Summer) mixes spiritual uplift with the pop-music type. And just as [director Norman] Jewison's involvement brought a '70s sensibility to the original, Webb could bring a modern, hipstery take.
Well, 500 Days of Summer does feature some singing and choreographed dance. Could you see a "hipstery" version of Jesus Christ Superstar working on the big screen in this day and age?
'80s and '90s movies like Heathers, Ghost and Sleepless in Seattle aren't the only things to be reworked for the stage these days — a musical version of Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot will open the 2009-10 season at Berkeley Repertory Theater. Here's more:
Michael Mayer, who picked up a 2007 Tony for his direction of Spring Awakening, will helm American Idiot. Mayer co-writes the book with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who conceived the punk-opera album and wrote most of the lyrics.
A nihilistic coming-of-age story drenched in post-9/11 paranoia, American Idiot follows disaffected contemporary American Everykid Jesus of Suburbia as he morphs into violent, drug-dealing alter-ego St. Jimmy and falls for anarchist girlfriend Whatsername.
The album has been compared to the Who's Tommy, which also became a stage musical, so I think I could see American Idiot working onstage. And apparently during this same season the Berkeley Rep is putting up another new rock-inspired musical, Girlfriend, based on Matthew Sweet's 1991 album.
Could you picture an American Idiot musical? Would you check it out?
You know, I could kind of understand the idea of Sleepless in Seattle becoming a stage musical. And then there came news of a London musical version of Ghost — which also makes about 1,000 times more sense than turning the beloved and darkly funny 1989 movie Heathers into a musical and bringing it to the stage. What's more, Kristen Bell has already taken part in a reading of the musical, playing Veronica (though it's not yet known if she'll actually star in the stage production). For more on this crazy news, read more
"Horses, horses, horses, horses. . . ."
I hope one of the songs in the Sleepless in Seattle Broadway musical begins like that, patterned after Meg Ryan's little moment singing along to the holiday tune in her car. According to Variety, the script for Sleepless in Seattle — The Musical is about half finished, and about 18 songs have been written. The article notes, "Sticking to plot of the Sleepless pic, the new tuner follows a cross-country romance arranged by a young boy for his widowed father. Storyline will remain set in the early 1990s."
I'm glad to hear that, since I think part of the movie's greatness is that it's so quintessentially '90s — back before Internet dating made it not so unusual at all to find love 3,000 miles away (actually, before the Internet made it much easier to find people in general) and before acronyms (like Jessica's MFEO = Made For Each Other) were commonly used as text message communication. I'm not going to lie, I'll probably see this production, just to find out how on earth they do it.
What do you think? And what are some suggestions for musical numbers to include in the stage musical? Would you want to see it?
Ha, I guess we picked a good time to talk about big-screen musical adaptations, because there's news about a new one heading our way. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jim Carrey will star in a modernized film adaptation of Damn Yankees, produced by the folks behind Hairspray.
The musical — which was produced for the first time in 1955 — centers on Joe Boyd, a married man "whose devotion to a hapless pro baseball team prompts him to make a Faustian bargain with the devil to help the team." Varitey continues:
He's transformed into slugger Joe Hardy, in exchange for Boyd's soul. Boyd can break the deal, but the deadline occurs during the World Series. For good measure, the devil engages Lola, a gorgeous lost soul, to seduce the slugger and seal his fate.
Gyllenhaal will play Boyd, while Carrey's the devil. It's the first time either of them has done a big-screen musical, though Gyllenhaal's showed us his singing chops on SNL before and Carrey had that whole Cuban Pete number in The Mask. What do you make of the news? Is Damn Yankees one of the musicals you think could be well-suited for film? And who should be their Lola?
Did you guys hear? The screen musical is back! Well, at least according to Hugh Jackman, who kicked off his Oscar ceremony musical medley on Sunday by talking about the box office success of Mamma Mia!.
It does seem like we get a good on-screen musical every few years, between Dreamgirls and Hairspray and even Chicago a while back.
I would love to see Mr. Jackman himself singing and dancing in the movies very soon, which got me thinking about musicals that should get a big-screen adaptation while the iron is apparently hot. I think Spring Awakening would be pretty great as a movie, and there's been some buzz for a while about getting Wicked on the big screen as well.
What musicals do you think would make good movies? And do you agree with Jackman that this is a trend worth rooting for?
Producer James L. Nederlander has reportedly acquired the rights to make a stage version of "Thriller," "Michael Jackson's iconic music-video spoof of horror films." The show will use music from the albums Off the Wall and Thriller. Nederlander says, "I love the idea of making 'Thriller' a musical. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, boy has big secret, now what?"
I love the song "Thriller" and I somehow never tire of watching people do the dance (be it in the Thrill the World movement or 13 Going on 30 or anyplace else). As opposed to certain other musical news that doesn't seem to make sense, I think "Thriller" might make for a great stage show. What do you think?
According to Wikipedia, The Phantom of the Opera's 20-year run on Broadway has been "the most lucrative entertainment enterprise of all time." Capitalizing on the beloved musical's major success, creators of the award-winning show now say a sequel is on the way.
Andrew Lloyd Webber confirmed that he has written a new score for a follow-up musical which will pick up where the first story leaves off, starting with "how the Phantom got away in the big fire and was taken to a thriving Coney Island in old New York."
Will it be called The Phantom of Coney Island? And will fans embrace this second installment from Webber? What do you think about this development? Are you keeping an open mind?
