Today, it was announced that HBO has given a greenlight to the long-awaited film adaptation of the Green Day musical American Idiot. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong is set to play the role of St. Jimmy (which he played a lot throughout the Broadway run). The last time there was any news about this was on March 17th, 2014. The news then was that playwright Rolin Jones, who collaborated with Billie Joe Armstrong on a musical called These Paper Bullets was going to be writing the screenplay. Their goal was to get dirtier and nastier than they did on stage while translating it into visual terms. If that’s still their goal, I could see why this project ended up at HBO. After all, Barbra Streisand held on to the film rights to Larry Kramer’s 1985 play The Normal Heart for a decade before giving up as she was unable to get financing for a feature film. That project later ended up at HBO in 2011, and the film adaptation aired in 2014 to some great acclaim.
Plans for a film adaptation of American Idiot were first announced on April 12th, 2011 with original stage director and co-creator Michael Mayer at the helm with Oscar-Winning Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black writing the screenplay. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman were set to produce the film through their production company Playtone as they both have such interest in producing movie musicals (they already scored big success with Mamma Mia!, and also have film adaptations of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Spring Awakening in the works). But as with many projects in Hollywood, films take time to develop. You can’t rush perfection.
Now I’m no Green Day fanatic (though from what I’ve heard, I like some of their songs), and I’ve never seen American Idiot. But it’s still exciting to me to see more Broadway musicals getting the big (or in some cases small) screen treatment. From the 1990’s when Hollywood musicals were pretty much dead to the early 2000’s, there were several TV movie adaptations of Broadway musicals such as Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, Annie, South Pacific, The Music Man, A Christmas Carol, and Once Upon a Mattress. Yet, when the feature film adaptation of Chicago became the success that it was in 2002, Hollywood was suddenly interested in musicals again. It seemed like we got at least one film adaptation of a Broadway musical every year from 2004-2009. Then in 2012, we finally got two more with Rock of Ages and Les Miserables followed by Jersey Boys and Into the Woods in 2014. As of now, the next big screen adaptation of a Broadway musical seems to be Wicked, which is set for release in 2019. Until then, we still have the live musicals on NBC, a TV movie adaptation of The Rocky Horror Show from FOX airing on October 20th, and now this.
So what are your thoughts on this news?
Plans for a film adaptation of American Idiot were first announced on April 12th, 2011 with original stage director and co-creator Michael Mayer at the helm with Oscar-Winning Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black writing the screenplay. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman were set to produce the film through their production company Playtone as they both have such interest in producing movie musicals (they already scored big success with Mamma Mia!, and also have film adaptations of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Spring Awakening in the works). But as with many projects in Hollywood, films take time to develop. You can’t rush perfection.
Now I’m no Green Day fanatic (though from what I’ve heard, I like some of their songs), and I’ve never seen American Idiot. But it’s still exciting to me to see more Broadway musicals getting the big (or in some cases small) screen treatment. From the 1990’s when Hollywood musicals were pretty much dead to the early 2000’s, there were several TV movie adaptations of Broadway musicals such as Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, Annie, South Pacific, The Music Man, A Christmas Carol, and Once Upon a Mattress. Yet, when the feature film adaptation of Chicago became the success that it was in 2002, Hollywood was suddenly interested in musicals again. It seemed like we got at least one film adaptation of a Broadway musical every year from 2004-2009. Then in 2012, we finally got two more with Rock of Ages and Les Miserables followed by Jersey Boys and Into the Woods in 2014. As of now, the next big screen adaptation of a Broadway musical seems to be Wicked, which is set for release in 2019. Until then, we still have the live musicals on NBC, a TV movie adaptation of The Rocky Horror Show from FOX airing on October 20th, and now this.
So what are your thoughts on this news?