Listening to NPR this morning, I nearly ran off the road with the announcement from the Nederlander Organization that they have acquired the Broadway rights to none other than Michael Jackson's Thriller. Yes, that's right... thriller.
Pop music musicals have been tried before, with mixed success. Lennon (John Lennon) and Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash) both flopped quickly with six week runs, Good Vibrations (Beach Boys) managed a full two months, and All Shook Up (Elvis) hung on for a full four months. One could compare this with Abba's Mama Mia, however, and see that there might be some hope for Nederlander.
In essence, the musical will utilize Jackson's music to tell the story of boy meets girl, boy has a big secret (He's a werewolf). The plotline is based off the a short film by the same name originally produced in 2008 in order to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking music video.
Reports hold that Mr. Jackson will be "very involved" in the production. The question of whether this is positive or negative will remain to be seen.
The New York Daily News article on the announcement can be had here.
1 comment:
I think this has the potential to be great. They're working with music from the best selling album in history. As long as the writers can tie in an interesting story to go with it, and a choreographer can come up with something original that still manages to pay tribute to Michael Peters, they've got a recipe for success.
I'm more worried about the Spider-Man musical:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7909772.stm
I see any attempts at adapting mainstream comic book characters to the stage being bigger flops than the two Hulk films combined.
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