Jose, the operative phrase here is "a good story is a good story." I just think Broadway (and the movies, for that matter) could sometimes be a bit more selective in the stories they chose to adapt and re-imagine. The last thing I want to see is a Broadway musical of a movie I didn't want to see in the first place. Particularly when Broadway (and it's now getting to be the West End too) is overrun with mediocre musicals of mediocre movies and they are squeezing out all the straight plays and new work in general.
Hmm... I'm not sure "squeezing out" is the proper term here.
We've talked about this whole magilla (sp?) before. Unfortunately, the "general audience" has been dumb-downed over the past couple of decades. Are there producers who want to take risks on more "brainy" and "intelligent" fare? Yes, there are. -But even then, sometimes they have to resort to "star casting" in order to get people into those seats. People who are normally used to paying $9.00-12.00 to see their favorite actor on a movie screen, and not $121.50 to see them live on stage. The upcoming revivals of
Equus and
All My Sons are prime examples of that. Both are great plays, but I seriously doubt
Equus would have transferred over
without Daniel Radcliffe (and Richard Griffiths). *Boy are there going to be some shocked teenagers - and their parents - when they find out what the play is really about.
-And, as for
All My Sons... Well, John Lithgow- great! Dianne Weist - great! Katie Holmes, Mrs. Tom Cruise - well... and she's in a secondary role too. -But they are already preparing for the onslaught of people who are hoping to catch a glimpse of her husband at the stage door during the run of the show.
Broadway has become a true business, for better or worse. Yes, one can "refuse" to see a show, but then producers have to make up that theoretically lost revenue by coming up with something else. That something could or could not be based on something else, but with the current business model, there has to be some sort of hook to help build and keep(!) the audience. And that hook can either be a Celebrity or a story that happened to come from a multi-million-dollar making film. -Money-making - not necessarily critically acclaimed.
*And I'd still love to see what Sondheim would do with "Groundhog Day".
