Broadway Musicals as Animated Features

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Atheistfools

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There are so many stage shows that would never translate well into liveaction because of the different tones and complex settings. With animation, its possible to have the original cast come in without having to worry about age or looks. plus, theres camera angles and styles that would fit the stories and make the songs entertaining enough to keep the audience interested.

here are my picks for musicals that i would love to see animated.

The Little Shop of Horrors - Now dont get me wrong, i love the 1986 film adaptation with Rick Moranis and the animatronics for the plant are the best ive seen. But when you come down to it, TLSHOH is a very cartoony musical. Especially with the zany lyrics and music of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. Plus, we need to see the original 'Dont Feed the Plants' ending,which requires alot of imagination. Hopefully the filmmakers can accomplish it w/out it being too depressing (which resulted in the Hollywood happy ending we got in the previous movie). Also, theres alot of possibilities with the plant and its tentacles, something the animators would have fun with. I would prefer it being hand-drawn animated or CG if theyre gonna give it a unique style.

Wicked - If theres anyone who should do this justice, its Lauren Faust. After watching MLP: FIM, i was convinced that she can tell good stories with strong female protagonists and shes good with musical staging (winter wrap-up anyone?).

Mary Poppins - Specfically, it should be based more on the additional songs and loyalty to the source material than the disney film. The one scene that i would love to see is the 'Temper Temper' number, its so creepy and fun. It should either be hand-drawn or stop-motion animated.

The Fantastics - I participated in this once in High School, and with a good understanding of the material, it should be animated. I tried watching the incredibly obscure liveaction movie, but it had so little to do with the show and it felt vey limited. I can see someone like Eric Goldberg or Henry Selick take on this film.

Cats: From what i could gather, Spielberg was going to produce an animated film of this at Universal. If they would make the story work for the screen while keeping the central idea, it could work as either a 2d or 3d film.

What other musicals do you like to see with the pencil or mouse?
 
Wicked would definitely work animated, as it's practically a Disney musical already. Aida might work too, and in fact Disney originally purchased the rights to the original opera in order to make it into an animated film.
 
Little Shop of Horrors sounds like a musical Dreamworks would pick up to make an animated film out of. It does look like it would mesh up well with their current line of future works.

I wouldn't mind seeing an animated adaption of Little Shop, as it's one of my favorite plays. I mean, the fact that I can call a carnivorous alien plant "One of my favorite characters of the whole play" is a feat in its own.

Phantom of the Opera and Wicked would make good Disney-esque films. Although, if they were able to animate it like Tangled, I would LOVE to see one of those films (Mostly Phantom) animated in that style.
 
How to succeed in Business without really trying - The stage play is zany enough for it to work.

SN : I wish I coulda seen the new edition of it with Daniel Hadcliffe (He plays Harry Potter) :
 
Thats a splendid idea! I could see someone like Brad Bird or Seth Mcfarlene helming it. And it would be an easy sell if Dan Radcliffe plays the role.

Another idea is 'A Funny Thing Happened all the way to the Forum'. Again, it had a crappy movie with bad editing, thus it should work as an animated feature.
 
Hairspray would be pretty great to see animated. Not that the musical movie is bad, and I have never seen the original John Waters film, but Hairspray's tone is very upbeat and feel-good but can get morose at times, like most Disney musicals. IMHO it should be traditionally animated with a loose, rubberhose style - it's set in the early 1960's after all ;-)

American Idiot would be pretty kickass. There's not many animated rock operas out there, so if a hypothetical animated film about American Idiot came out and is successful, it could be a great launch. Since the musical itself is very flashy and grungy, a film could probably use various forms of animated media - like stop motion or CGI, for instance.
 
I actually had no idea!! All the news articles I found say that a film about AI possibly was in production were posted just today. I was aware of a national tour, though (no big deal, I've seen it on Broadway)
 
I've always thought that the Phantom of the opera would make a pretty great animated film from Disney. Although I remember hearing something that Disney was going to consider doing Phantom of the Opera but it never came to be. I dont know much about that though.

I've always thought about Chicago working out as a live-action/2D animated hybrid for some reason. I guess the only reason why is because whenever I watched the movie(the 03 one) I'd pictured wolfs going nuts over the chicks :sweat:.
 
Even though its not broadway, it would be fun to see 'A Very Potter Musical' done with animation. Maybe as an independent project rather than mainstream.

Suessical wouldve been great as an animated feature too, but not theaters cuz of Horton and the upcoming Lorax movies. I was just listening to the song 'Here on Who' and realized theres possibilities for choreography and creative setups. Maybe a tv special on PBS or Nickelodeon would suffice.

The Wiz could use a good animated remake, preferabally animated by the guy who did Proud Family.

I would also like to see Butch Hartman animate a film based on "Its a bird, its a plane, its Superman" The musical is so unbelievably campy and stupid that its right up his alley.
 
Even though the film is one my favorite musical films, I'd say an animated Rocky Horror Picture Show could be great if Richard O'Brien had a say.

The Producers would also work since some elements are cartoony in the way the songs are performed.
 
You know what would be funny: if Xanadu (NOT the broadway version, but rather a remake of the actual movie) was animated, but with the "Don't Walk Away" sequence done in live action. Still, that would be something to see, provided the script is right...
 
This. In fact, there was a fellow a few years ago with the online handle of Raphael, Romil Ilgan, who was working on an animated Music of the Night, in a relative Disney style. http://www.phantoonsoftheopera.com/

I think Wicked should be animated- possibly one of the best ways to bring that world to life on screen, and with the extra added possibility of having Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel reprise their roles.
 
I would love to see the new Addams Family musical adapted. It would work wonderfully.

I also imagined Repo! The Genetic Opera being done with QUALITY animation by Adult Swim, still use the same voice track as the original movie, but add in ALL the cut-stuff and you got a nice animated musical.
 
I was just thinking about that recently. Maybe Tim Burtons stop-motion remake can incorporate some of the songs, but i doubt it would be the case. Plus i hear he has a different taste for musicals. For example, the reason he cut the chorus from sweeney todd is because he thought it was unnatural.
 
Little Shop of Horrors has already been animated; not as a feature, mind you, but as a Saturday morning cartoon called Little Shop which ran on Fox Kids from September 7, 1991 to September 5, 1992. In this version, Seymour Krelborn and Audrey were turned into kids, and Junior the plant rapped instead of craving human flesh.
 
I know, but im talking about a genuine animated adaptation of the musical itself with the characters the way they were portrayed.
 
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