The current trend on Broadway that doesn't seem to be going away is turning popular movies into musicals. All four Best Musical Tony nominees this year were, at one point, popular movies. I know what you're thinking and yes, Bring It On was really a turned into a musical. That really happened and wasn't a joke. I've decided that it's time that I cash in on this latest craze. The following are 20 amazing movies that would make equally brilliant musicals.
1. Zero Dark Thirty
As Maya's obsession to find Osama bin Laden reaches a boiling point, she falls into a deep sleep that turns into a nightmare when 20 tap dancing Osama's haunt her in an epic act one finale that will have audiences buzzing into intermission.
2. Mannequin
Not only would this provide Kim Cattrall with a vehicle to bring her back to the stage but it could also potentially reunite Jefferson Starship to provide music and lyrics leading up to the show's final number "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now." If the box office is really hurting, producers could do Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On The Move in repertory.
3. The Fast and the Furious
Think Starlight Express but faster, more furious and a hell of a lot more skin.
4. Pretty Woman
Musicals about hookers always provide big bucks at the box office (see: Sweet Charity). In the first act's finale entitled "Big Mistake" Vivian Ward transforms from common call girl to Beverly Hills debutante in a matter of minutes. Other highlights include the ballad: "Edward (My Favorite Name in the World)" and a dance number about colored condoms a la Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
5. Clue
Everybody loves being part of the show and in Clue: The Musical, the audience decides how the ending will go down. And lets face it, anything that Lesley Ann Warren touches turns to gold.
6. Drop Dead Gorgeous
Pyrotechnics will be at the forefront of this musical during Gladys Leeman's 11 o'clock number: "The Swan Ate My Baby" rivaling "Rose's Turn" and featuring live swans on loan from The Metropolitan Opera House.
7. 9 to 5
Oh... wait... this article is about turning movies into musicals not wasted opportunities.
8. Rambo
Rocky is so successful overseas that they are bringing it to Broadway, which means only one thing: Sylvester Stallone is en vogue again. Rambo's flashback sequence of being tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese would not only make for an amazing Twyla Tharp choreographed modern dance piece (Tony!) but would bring audiences back to the heyday of Broadway (see: Miss Saigon!) (see: more Tony's!).
9. Catwoman
Super heroes seem to have made a seamless transition to Broadway... well... Anyway, Broadway needs to redirect its attention to straight men (and they would with the skimpy costumes, or lack there of whipped up by William Ivey Long). Catwoman would be just the musical to feature stunts never seen before on Broadway. When people start breaking bones in rehearsal -- tourists flock.
10. Mommie Dearest
Seriously? This would be the gayest thing ever and a cash cow. I honestly don't know why someone hasn't thought of this. I am actually being serious now.
11. The English Patient
The movie that bored millions will now bore even more with sweeping power ballads from the man himself, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. There could also be a helicopter on stage. On a totally unrelated topic, perhaps a revival of Miss Saigon would be Broadway's saving grace right now. Just a thought.
12. Silkwood
The lesbians are Broadway's untapped market. Lord knows there have been more than enough shows featuring or starring gay men. And let's face facts, Broadway has been dying for Cher to take to the stage which would lure in... well, gay men.
13. On Golden Pond
Audiences love when elderly actors come out of retirement to make a quick buck before they kick the bucket. Broadway also needs a musical number revolving around "the loons" (and not the ones on stage).
14. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde
Because the first one was so good.
15. Corrina, Corrina
Every other Whoopi Goldberg movie has been made into a musical. Why the hell shouldn't this one be too?
16. City of Angels
Meg Ryan could revive her career with a trip to the Great White Way. Bonus points if producers can get the Goo Goo Dolls to write the music for it.
17. Howard the Duck
Just because it didn't work as a movie, doesn't mean it won't work as a musical.
18. A Nightmare on Elm Street
In this dramatic musical, that really gets to the bottom of what makes Freddy Krueger tick, audiences are taken to the magical world of Elm Street. Since theatergoers love having things thrown at them from the stage, audience members will be provided with splash gear that protects them from the carnage being hurled at them but also doubles as a souvenir.
19. Roots
Paging LeVar Burton! You are needed because America is desperate for a toe-tapping musical about slavery.
20. Overboard
Don't front: you know every time that movie comes on TV you stop what you're doing and you watch. A musical about a debutante who loses her memory and is forced into indentured servitude by a country bumpkin and then for whatever reason decides to stay with him in the end would make great fodder for Broadway. If ticket sales are low, producers could always throw Goldie Hawn in for the role that Katherine Helmond played in the film. I'd be the first in line.
There you have it, 20 movies that would make amazing musicals. I just made some desperate producer in New York millions.