After the shit show that was my high school production of the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, I thought that would be the last of it I’d see in my lifetime.  I thought I’d escaped it.  Apparently not.

Warner Bros. is considering remaking it, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt producing and starring and possibly with screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa writing the thing.

Some sources are saying that JGL and Aguirre-Sacasa are great choices to get this show on the road; one can sing and act and the other is a decent writer.  Whether or not that is the case, I’d like to call attention to the fact that this is another remake out of the 73628 we’ve seen recently.  Even if this is the right time with the right people…  What the goddamn fuck happened to Hollywood creativity?  The magic of Hollywood apparently now lies in re-creation.

This story has received quite a bit of love over the decades: it started in the 1930s and became two movies, a musical play and an animated series.  Now… it’ll be another musical movie.  Go figure.

We may soon have yet another adventure in the little shop, little shop of horrors where suddenly, Seymour has completely disappeared and ohmygoddon’tfeedtheplants.

Check out the trailer of the 1986 Warner Bros. rendition of Little Shop of Horrors.

Source: /Film

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It’s no surprise that the Broadway adaptation Spider-man: Turn off the Dark was going to be a success. Even with their delays in production, going several million dollars over budget and the removal and replacement of former director Julie Taymor the production has been successful enough for a Tony nomination for Julie Taymor. Wait…my spider-sense is tingling.
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Ah . . . the glory of seeing something you didn’t really care much about implode in a $65 million dollar boondoggle. The gloriously disastrous musical that is Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, now the butt of every Broadway joke, has decided to drop back and punt by bringing in  Broadway veteran Paul Bogaev. Hired to “help improve the performance, vocal and orchestration arrangements,” Bogaev has his hands full. Bono and the Edge are currently writing new music and the musicals producers are talking to, but have not signed, Spider-Man comic book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to re-work some of the book (That’s Broadway for “script” . . . Now you know as much as I do about Broadway). Contrary to blog reports, the production has not hired a new director. Three weeks to go before the show’s fifth scheduled opening on March 15.

Fifth times the charm! I’m sure of it!
Just click those ruby red shoes and say,
“There’s no musical like Spiderman,
There’s no musical like Spiderman!”

Now for the salt that’s gonna get rubbed into Julie Taymor’s and Bono’s $65 million dollar wounds. Justin Moran, humorist and playwright, has launched “Spider-man Smackdown”, a guerrilla theater project to write, compose, choreograph, cast, rehearse, and perform a complete musical based on the character Spiderman in New York City before the March 15th opening date of the fifth attempt to open Spiderman: Turn of the Dark on Broadway.

You can check out Moran’s blog for updates and videos about the project like the one below.

“How important is $65 Million in making good theatre?” jokes Moran. “We’re going to develop a story, write a complete musical score and script, design sets and costumes, cast, rehearse, advertise and ultimately mount the production on March 14th, 2011 at the The People’s Improv Theatre in NYC.”

That $65 million is very important, without that you can’t buy enough doughnuts to keep the Unions happy. There are many theatre unions, Actors Equity Association (for actors and stage managers), the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE, for designers and technicians). Many theatres require that their staff be members of these organizations.

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