Composer Adam Guettel and screenwriter William Goldman will collaborate on a musical version or the hit fairy tale film "The Princess Bride," the New York Post reported.
Well, "hit" is stretching things a bit. "The Princess Bride," while certainly not a flop, was only a modest success in theaters, but developed a following on video. Still, the idea of turning the story into a musical is a great one; it's romantic and sweeping and dramatic and funny; choice material for musicalization.
I suppose there's no chance of getting Mandy Patinkin, who played a featured role in the movie and of course has a great singing voice, to reprise his role for the stage. Inigo Montoya is a well-loved part, but it's not the lead, and casting a star (in Broadway terms) of Patinkin's calliber would tend to detract.
The material would make for a decided shift to the lighthearted for Guettel, whose two previous musicals, Floyd Collins and The Light in the Piazza, both examine the darker and moodier sides of human nature.
Goldman is a famed screenwriter known for the films "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "All the President's Men" and "Marathon Man." He also wrote the classic examination of the Broadway world, "The Season."
I've heard Guettel's Light in the Piazza score and was not impressed. But I think it won a Tony, so what do I know? I think it's interesting that nowhere in this item do they mention that Goldman is also a novelist and "Princess Bride" was originally a (IMO superior) novel.
2 comments:
INCONCEIVABLE!!
I love this film, it's one of my favourite feel-good movies and it always cheers me up.
I've meant to get the book for years, I'll really have to make the effort to read it.
It's teriffic. I like the movie a lot, though I think the director could have shot the locations so they looked a little less like sets.
But he got great performances out of his splendid cast, especially Patinkin, who is flawless.
But the book is able to add more depth, as books are able to do.
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