As if you didn’t need any further proof that they’ll turn any movie into a musical these days, here’s another one. The New York Post reports that an American Psycho musical is in the works. This is just another drop in the bucket of the endless array of sometimes ridiculous movies being turned into equally ridiculous Broadway musicals.
Here’s some more movies that are being turned into or already are musicals.
- Billy Eilliot
- Bullets Over Broadway
- Catch Me If You Can (Yeah cause this needs a musical)
- Christmas Story
- Cry-Baby
- Ever After
- The First Wives Club (snore)
- Get Shorty
- Grumpy Old Men (seriously?)
- High Fidelity
- Leap of Faith
- Legally Blonde (they’re just jerking us around now)
- The Lord of the Rings
- Moonstruck (Gag)
- Nine to Five (Double Gag)
- The Princess Bride (WTF!)
- Shrek
- Sister Act (wasn’t this basically a musical already)
- Soapdish
- Tarzan
- The Wedding Singer (wow)
- Xanadu
- Young Frankenstein
And this was an outdated list.
To say that Broadway has officially run out of ideas for new musicals would be an understatement. People are always saying that Hollywood is out of good ideas for films, thus they have turned to adapting comic books to movies. Well in the same light, Broadway is doing the same to Hollywood’s films.
I can just imagine some Broadway producers sitting around brainstorming ideas for new musicals, nobody’s coming up with anything solid. Then Bill, the guy in the corner who always has the stupidest ideas (but they keep him around for comic relief), pipes up, “Hey, how about a Grumpy Old Men Musical!” “Damn it Bill! Shut up, we’re trying to think. Why would anyone make a musica…..” “HOW ABOUT LEGALLY BLONDE: THE MUSICAL!” “Sonofa…Bill we couldn’t possibly…actually, hmmmm.” And before you know it every producer at that meeting has their laptop out looking at IMDB for some of the most random titles of the last three decades. “Hey guys, Sister Act: The Musical, most of the numbers are already written for us.” “Great idea Jill! Keep up the good work!”
There was a time when Hollywood would adapt musicals into films, this worked out well as many Americans didn’t have access to Broadway theater (or the ability to afford admission). Movie theaters on the other hand were much more accessible and affordable.
While I can’t say that I won’t end up going to see a few of the shows in the works or currently touring. I can definitely exclude Shrek, Christmas Story, Legally Blonde, Grumpy Old Men, Moonstruck and The First Wives Club. I just can’t fathom why they think so many of these films are worthy of a musical adaptation. Well, I do know, cause they think they can make money off of them, and they most likely will succeed.
Related Articles
- ‘Sister Act’ Gets a Broadway Home (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
- “American Psycho: The Musical, Coming To Broadway!” and related posts (consumerist.com)
- Five Films That Deserve a Broadway Musical (moviefone.com)
- ‘A Christmas Story’ Set to Become a Musical (sugarslam.com)
- Spiderman On Broadway Musical: Music By Bono And The Edge, video (nowpublic.com)