# Movies that could be turned into stage musicals
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 22, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339 "2008-04-22T01:20:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/1 "2008-04-22T01:20:08Z")
Just what the title says – what popular movies could you envision being turned into good Broadway musicals? I guess it’s a bit of a tricky question, because some movies that wouldn’t strike me as having much musicalizing potential, such as “The Color Purple” or “Sunset Boulevard” were successfully adapted. So it all just depends on who’s doing the adapting. Still, some stories seem inherently more suitable than others (ie, “Hairspray”).
Best one I could think of was [Saved!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332375/). I pictured a couple of Christian folk style anthems, a number when the guy told his girlfriend he was gay, a soul-searching ballad when the main girl decided to sleep with him to make him straight again, a show-stopper set at the re-orientation camp – so many possibilities! I guess someone else also saw the potential, because according to the show’s [wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved!) it’s already been turned into a musical that will premiere this year!
Then I thought that [The Shop Around the Corner](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033045/) could make a good musical, but someone informed me that [that, too](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Loves_Me) has already been taken. [Twice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Good_Old_Summertime).
Oh well, I guess that means I’m thinking like a producer! Anyways, what are your suggestions?
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### Author:  [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/2 "2008-04-22T01:33:55Z")
I think _The Princess Bride_ would make a dandy musical, if done by the right people (the main “right person” being William Goldman). I wonder what became of [this project](http://www.playbill.com/news/article/94526.html).
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### Author:  [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/3 "2008-04-22T01:44:10Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud]
I think _The Princess Bride_ would make a dandy musical, if done by the right people (the main “right person” being William Goldman). I wonder what became of [this project](http://www.playbill.com/news/article/94526.html).
[/QUOTE]
Good idea! I hope they finish the project, though it’s hard to imagine Adam Guettel writing the music – seems more like a job for Frank Wildhorn?
Incidentally, I could swear that this subject was done only a year or two ago – I’d swear I remember someone suggesting “Steel Magnolias.” I can’t find the thread though. I haven’t been around the Dope in a while; have large parts of the archives gone missing?
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### Author:  [@DataZak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataZak)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/4 "2008-04-22T02:09:47Z")
The musical versions of _Streetcar Named Desire_ and _Planet of the Apes_ from _The Simpsons_ should be adapted into a live version.
\*New Orleeeans…
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleeeans…
Tacky, overpriced, souvenir stores!
If you want to go to Hell, you should make that trip
to the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp’!
New Orleeeans…
Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile!
New Orleaaans…
Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleeeans…
Crummy, lousy, rancid, and rank!
New Orleeeans!\*
😃 Classic!
I was also going to suggest a musical Lord of the Rings but it appears [I’m behind the times.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(musical))
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/5 "2008-04-22T02:12:22Z")
On the other side of the coin, movies you’d never have thought would make good musicals, but did, there’s **The Full Monty** which was awesome.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/6 "2008-04-22T02:16:43Z")
A Clockwork Orange.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/7 "2008-04-22T02:28:22Z")
I’ve suggested _Fried Green Tomatoes_ (in some detail) in the past.
_Coming to America_
_The Egg and I_ (updated a bit perhaps)
_Matrix_
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### Author:  [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/8 "2008-04-22T02:41:45Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
_The Egg and I_ (updated a bit perhaps)
[/QUOTE]
There was a musical adaptation of _The Egg and I_ that ran off-Broadway in 1958. It featured an all-black cast. Diana Sands won an Obie for it, I think.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/9 "2008-04-22T12:01:10Z")
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
A Clockwork Orange.
[/QUOTE]
Ditto.
Also, while there is a parody musical IIRC, I think SILENCE OF THE LAMBS has real musical potential.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/10 "2008-04-22T12:09:06Z")
**Casablanca** – you KNOW people will go to see it.
**Marty**
**Harold and Maude**
**The Sting**
I keep thinking of all those MAD “musicals”
Or my own ones, posted on this Board – “Dune” and “Daffy Darko”
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/11 "2008-04-22T12:16:57Z")
“My Favorite Year” would make a dandy musical in the right hands.
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### Author:  [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/12 "2008-04-22T13:14:23Z")
[QUOTE=Eutychus]
“My Favorite Year” would make a dandy musical in the right hands.
[/QUOTE]
It _is_ a musical, by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens. It’s uneven, but pretty good.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/13 "2008-04-22T13:59:29Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
Also, while there is a parody musical IIRC, I think SILENCE OF THE LAMBS has real musical potential.
[/QUOTE]
[Here](http://www.jonandal.com/) is the parody.
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### Author:  [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/14 "2008-04-22T14:42:03Z")
**The Nightmare Before Christmas**. That would _kick ass_ as a stage musical. I could see Kevin Cahoon in the lead role.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/15 "2008-04-22T14:46:23Z")
Star Trek II The Wrath of Kahn.
Huge sets flying about with the actors on them!
Sense and Sensibility
Police Academy (hey they made Xanadu into one)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (I’ve NEVER SEEN THIS FILM, but it is for tween girls and that’s a huge B’way audience)
Planet of the Apes
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/16 "2008-04-22T19:39:25Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
**Harold and Maude**
[/QUOTE]
There have been two attempts; one [flopped on Broadway](http://ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=4225) and the other was a retooled version that plays regionally. It’s most successful run was with [Estelle Parsons](http://www.curtainup.com/haroldandmaude.html), though the most intriguing was probably the one at [Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum](http://theatricum.com/) that starred Ellen Geer (Grandpa Walton’s daughter) as Maude; when she was young she played Sunshine Dore in the movie.
Reviews are mixed though. I think it could probably be really re-worked into something good. Carol Burnett has said she’d love to play Maude if it’s ever fixed.
_Gone With the Wind_ opened this week as a [musical in London](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_With_The_Wind_%28musical%29) this month. ([Official Homepage](http://www.gwtwthemusical.com/).) Rumors are that Hugh Jackman is being courted to play Rhett Butler on Broadway. This isn’t the first time it’s been musicalized (the first time was in the 70s and starred Harve Presnell, bk4 _Unsinkable Molly Brown_ in the 60s and the father-in-law in _Fargo_ many years later), but the first version had lackluster reviews and tanked due to high costs. The current version is a completely different book and lyrics and the pre-talk seems pretty good.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/17 "2008-04-22T19:48:03Z")
Post edit window addendum to above: [this review gives a detailed account](http://westendwhingers.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/review-gone-with-the-wind-the-musical-act-1-at-the-new-london-theatre/) of the musical GWTW. His review is mixed. Overall he says it’s great acting and decent score but at times cliched and always rushed. The musical seems to follow the book more closely than the movie (there are characters who weren’t in the movie [though not Grandma Fontain, dang it!] and Scarlett has her other children).
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/18 "2008-04-22T19:57:23Z")
A musical, huh? You’ll always have the hurdle of having your characters need to realistically burst into song from time to time… for some movies, that would be a dealbreaker right there.
Hmmm. With that caveat, I’d suggest:
_The Sixth Sense_ - The pscychologist would be a bass, or maybe a tenor, I think, and you’d need a great preteen male soprano in the Haley Joel Osment role. Hey, it could work!
_Misery_ - I know, I know, _Carrie_ flopped, but of all of the Stephen King novels and subsequent movies, I think this could be a very cool, dark, musical. For that matter, _'Salem’s Lot_ could, too. Oh, yeah.
_Trading Places_ - This could be magnificent with the right people in the Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy roles. I foresee some good duets with the two elderly brothers singing, too. (I saw _Dirty Rotten Scoundrels_ as a stage musical when it came through town last year, and it was really good - there are some real similarities in tone and subject matter between these two).
\*
The American President\* - A love story with politics? It’ll practically write itself!
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/19 "2008-04-22T20:10:28Z")
Two comedies that could work:
_Trading Places_
_Bullets over Broadway_
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-be-turned-into-stage-musicals/446339/20 "2008-04-22T20:14:34Z")
Since Ira Levin had some experience with stage musicals, I wish he had done _The Stepford Wives_.