Hollywood's new kinkiness

By Steven Zeitchik

There are good and bad ideas in contemporary culture, and sometimes the line between them is thin. "Get Smart" the TV show is a good idea. "Get Smart" the film may not be. Search engines are good. Yahoo starting a celebrity gossip site titled "OMG" isn't.

We'll leave it for others to decide where the trend of film-to-stage -- a reversal of the many decades of Hollywood plucking the best of Broadway -- fits.  Either way, its popularity seems to grow daily. For the last decade or so, bigscreen hits have made their way to Broadway and sometimes back again -- "The Lion King" and "Legally Blonde," "The Wedding Singer" and "The Full Monty," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hairspray."

Now the trend appears to be migrating from hits to other kinds of b.o. performers. Daryl Roth, a well-known producer of many a Tony-winning play (she's most recently behind the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning family drama "August: Osage County") will produce a Broadway musical version of "Kinky Boots," that movie about a cross-dresser and a North England shoe titan that heped establish Chiwetel Eijofor's range, though underperformed for Miramax in the U.S. back in 2006.

Like "The Full Monty," the movie finds its pathos -- and absurdist humor -- in people of a certain background engaging in improbably outre activities. (The likely director for the stage version of "Boots,"  Jerry Mitchell, actually choreographed "The Full Monty" when it came to Broadway). But Roth says a successful Broadway adaptation doesn't need to be about replicating the exact tone and feel of the film; after all, you're already turning a non-musical into a musical -- why not tweak other areas as well. In the case of "Boots," that means the more slapstick elements could be streamlined,  while the play could highlight the film's feelgood aspects more than, say, its moments of cross-dressing fetishism.

Whatever the result, we're likely to see more movies turn into plays in the coming years. That's partly because film producers and theater producers are forming more relationships, and because creators want to work in more venues (see under David Cronenberg's "The Fly" opera.) But it's also about a simpler calculus  -- why start from scratch when you have source material that works and (in the case of the hits) a brand that someone has paid millions to test and market.

So what else will we see make the journey from Hollywood to Times Square? We'd suggest -- and we're open to submissions here -- a few other ideas. A "No Country for Old Men" musical, say, or a children's-theater version of "Wanted," or maybe even a straight dramatic interpretation of "You Don't Mess with the Zohan."

Adam Sandler by way of Eugene O'Neill?

Like we said, a thin line.

Comments

[Mickey Slevin]

How about an awful "Hancock: The Musical!" with Taye Diggs in the title role and Norbert Leo Butts and Sherry Rene Scott taking over Bateman and Theron?
Also, with Disney's pattern, I think a WALL-E musical isn't too far off. Maybe they'll use puppets again.

[Dan Zee]

It's easier to adapt something, even a piece of crap, than it is to come up with something original. So I think we're going to see a lot more of this. And every so often, someone will be inspired and actually create something great. So you never know.

[Janet]

Awesome site!