Musicals Into Movies

The Playbill website has a list of Broadway musicals that are being turned into movies. In fact, I'll list the names of them here. Hello Again has just come out, Aladdin is in production and the following are "In Development"…

13, American Idiot, Bare: A Pop Opera, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Cats, Come From Away, Finding Neverland, In the Heights, Jekyll & Hyde, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lysistrata Jones, Matilda, Memphis, Miss Saigon, Pippin, Spring Awakening, Sunset Boulevard and Wicked, as well as remakes of Guys and Dolls, Gypsy, Little Shop of Horrors, Oliver!, South Pacific and West Side Story.

I could make a real good case that we don't need remakes of Guys and Dolls, Little Shop of Horrors, Oliver!, South Pacific and West Side Story. I'm torn about Gypsy since I love the show but don't much like the 1962 film adaptation.

And if it's remade soon, it's apparently going to be remade with Barbra Streisand as Mama Rose, which sounds to me like it would be good for the box office, bad for the property. Gypsy is about this woman, Mama Rose, who lacked the talent and charisma to be a star herself so she had to shove her daughters — first one, then the other — out onto the stage so she could live vicariously through their stardoms. I have a tough time imagining Ms. Streisand playing someone who couldn't be a star.

We may never find out if she could pull it off. On the Playbill list, note that the latest news about the project is from 8/3/2016 and what was current then was the film had lost its financial backing. A lot of these musicals will probably never make it to the screen.

Are you eager for the planned South Pacific redo with Hugh Jackman, Justin Timberlake and Michelle Williams? Well, don't start heading for the Cineplex just yet. The latest news on the Playbill site is from 5/10/2013. The latest news on Jekyll & Hyde is even older. The announcement of the film of Finding Neverland only goes back to August of 2016 but that announcement is from its producer, Harvey Weinstein. These days, about all Harvey's producing is contempt and outrage.

Anyway, the list is a good reminder that not every movie that is announced gets made. Let's check back one year from now and see how many of these have advanced any closer to reality. I'll be surprised if more than a third have.