Next film to stage or stage to film musical

I would like a remake of "Whistle down the wind" with Andrew LLoyd Webber's music.

It was a book first. Then a film. Then a musical.

Film to Stage: Tootsie, To Wong Foo, Moulin Rouge, Pride, Miss Petigrew Lives For A Day, Bedknobs & Broomsticks

Stage To Film: Sunset Boulevard, Follies, Parade, Ragtime

A Whistle Down The Wind film musical would be interesting, but I'd prefer to see it taken back to the setting of the original film.  When I heard that ALW was writing a stage musical based on the film, I was excited, but he seemed to completely ignore what made the film so endearing.  It's a shame, really, because the film was really charming and touching.

The other night, I was watching the film The Wedding Planner (Jennifer Lopez and Matthew Mcconaughey) and it struck me that it could work well as a musical.

Also, I've always thought Letter To Brezhnev would work well as a musical.  Ditto Willy Russell's Dancin' Thru The Dark, which is based on his play Stags & Hens.

I agree about Moulin Rouge - I'm surprised it hasn't made the screen to stage transition already, to be honest.

Stage to screen -Wicked/ Miss Saigon / The Addams Family

Screen to stage - would love to see Princess and the Frog/ Moulin Rouge/ Anastasia (seen that might be 2017 broadway so may have to book!) Tangled

For a start, I think there are just too many to chose from!...

I'm surprised La Cage Aux Folles hasn't been made into a musical film yet

It'll never happen but Pitch Perfect would make a great stage musical

I am really looking forward to a Miss Saigon film, but only if they go all the way with great singers and great actors and not the "toned down, constantly switching between acting and singing in 1 sentence, Les Mis film" way. Because that makes it silly. It is too literal for this material.

This artform is per definition not literal, it is a triumph of the fantasy. Treating it as such creates raw emotion.
We should see and hear things that aren't really there, because at many points in this story they are singing about something that is in their mind. ("This is the hour" after Kim shot Thuy, is a moment of complete horror/bewilderment in Kim's mind. Show it. I can see her standing in a undefinable space with a huge choir of ghosts singing. The nightmare, last night of the world, etc) I can imagine wonderful elaborate cinematorgraphy, special effects, ghost faces singing, smoke that turns into an image, moving camera's, big black spaces, romantic scenes that look better than life, etc. Last night of the world feels like a dream for them. Show it. Make it theatrical, big and muggy, also with the sets. Create a bigger than life sub-reality to make the essence of this material work. Realize that certain softly sung notes or soaring notes work as emotion evokers/actors themselves. Use them, act through them instead of acting in spite of them. Same goes for cinematography.


Also, we don't have to see the person mouthing all the words into the camera at every occasion, certain songs can be, in parts used as a kind of soundtrack/voice-over. I can imagine during the pre-recorded "I still believe", we see scenes of Kim and Chris that we know have happened, but haven't seen before, this is their thoughts being sung. They could also use very creative cinematography in the transition to Ellen in the USA in that song. Or in the nightmare scene.

I feel that there is a way of musical film-making that has not been done yet. A way that uses fantastic singing in a very filmic and theatrical way. A way that has been done in animation, but not in live action yet.

I feel the only films that came close to this approach were Evita, Moulin Rouge and Chicago, but still not quite there and the singing in those was mediocre. Imagine if both things are outstanding. That would be epic.


About the casting, 

Nicole Scherzinger could play Gigi:




Jeremy Jordan could play Chris, I am talking about that kind of singing and acting talent:

Oh yes, Parade!

I'd like to see someone tackle the teen classic The Breakfast Club

(I believe) there's rumoured to be a Guys & Dolls remake with Chatum Tanning

Last I heard about a Princess Bride musical, Adam Guettel was composing and working alongside William Goldman with regards to the writing part. After a while, it became clear that William Goldman wanted the bulk of the writing credits, on the grounds that he wrote the film and the book and was now writing the words for the show, whereas Adam Guettel wanted a good solid quantity of credit on the grounds that he was writing the *music* for the *musical*. I don't know about the actual details, so I have no way of knowing who was being the more reasonable and who was being the less reasonable in this scenario, but I do know they found this an absolutely insurmountable problem and so just stopped all together. I don't know about any Andy Karl version, but I'm still bitter as hell about the Adam Guettel version not happening.