In Hollywood's days past, stage-to-screen adaptations were a common trend. A well-known and loved stage property gets adapted to the screen and makes boatloads of money. Over the past ten to fifteen years, that trend has slowed a great deal, with play adaptations far less often gracing (or disgracing) the silver screen.
By day, I work at both a campus cinema and photography studio, but by night, I'm an actor (and so far, a one-time director). I'm an anthropology major who does as much theatre as he can without declaring it as a major. I follow what's on Broadway (though I've never been to New York City), and read new plays as soon as they get to Borders, where I take full advantage of their reading chairs for afternoons at a time.
When Tallahassee Little Theater selects its plays, a lot of what goes into a choice is marketable name recognition. A play like Laura or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum draws people in due to their familiarity and pedigree as shows (and particularly movies, in the age of DVD).
So from where and wherefore did this dry spell of Broadwayless Hollywood come from, and why did Hollywood return to the well?
"No one wants to see musicals anymore!" the businessmen and the audiences cried, similar to the recent call for the death knell of the blockbuster special effects action film. The same is often said about 'arty theatre plays'. When did the tide turn, and 'artsy theatre stuff' become okay again?
If you ask me, this is nothing more than the cyclical nature of the film industry spinning back around again. The arrival of Moulin Rouge brought musicals (and eventually non-musicals) back to the fore, and as a result, non-musicals got a better shot at showing up anywhere other than HBO or Showtime.
Let Them Watch Pay-Cable
Donald Margulies' Dinner With Friends won the Pulitzer prize, but inexplicably got sent straight to HBO, just as Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical got sent straight to Showtime. Neither was revolutionary, surely, but they weren't nearly as bad as the vast majority of sub-par movies put on 2000 screens during either film's year of release.
On the flipside, Proof and the upcoming Bat Boy are both receiving a full theatrical release.
The former selections have a four person cast, and the latter share similar comic-horror themes. Where's the difference?
Was it just these execs at that particular time, or full studio schedules, or just the quality of Broadway's output? Am I longing for the Age of the Mogul to return?
If you try to think of memorable plays of the last ten or fifteen years, a few notable ones have been held up by legal issues, but large-scale musicals like Parade and Ragtime are ripe for big screen adaptation, certainly moreso than the version we got of Chicago was (Best Picture award notwithstanding).
For that matter, where the hell is Sweeney Todd? I know Sam Mendes was attached at one point, but certainly someone would pick this gem back up.
The Retread Train
With Hollywood so often banking on movie versions of TV shows with moderately large (or huge) budgets, you'd think they'd at least "stoop" to adapting popular material. Instead, there's a big pile of remakes in the queue.
There have been rumblings about anything from a Guys and Dolls do-over to another Damn Yankees. Do we really need remakes of these films, or is Hollywood just relying on familiar brand recognition all over again? I tend to lean toward the latter, preferring my memories of Brando and Sinatra to the option of seeing Hugh Jackman and Nathan Lane try a retread on screen.
Don't get me wrong, I think they're both fantastic performers, but the difference between a stage revival and a screen remake is that the stage revival is only around for a limited time, and the film will laways be around on DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever.
No one wants the risk inherent in hoping the millions your studio piles into a gamble produces the next classic. As a result, cinematic ambition has taken a gigantic nosedive in the past few years. Will we see film versions of Frozen, Doubt, or The Pillowman any time soon, if at all? Probably not.
The Best News All Day
Do look out for the upcoming movie version of BJ and the Bear* coming this fall from Fox!
I almost forgot to mention how much I'm anticipating the upcoming movie based on Land of the Lost**. I can't wait to read that script...
Rolling Blackout
As a secondary note, my access to the internet is still sporadic, but once that gets fixed, you'll see a more regular twice-weekly schedule.
*this is a joke
**this is not a joke