They're having the Broadway musical version slated for the big screen in 2005 (a movie of a musical of a movie), but I have a couple of concerns. While fortunately they're having Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprise their roles as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, Nicole Kidman has been given the role of Ulla. I've heard some concerns that she's not really suited for a comedy role. I also think that she has the wrong look for Ulla. Ulla is quite oomphish, while Nicole Kidman is of an anarexic (sp?) build.

Not suited for comedy? Maybe not a straight up comedy, but she does dark comedy fairly well. She won a Golen Globe for To Die For.

Yeah Nicole is a gorgeous person and does do dark comedy rather well and has a great range. But she doesnt quite have the body of Ulla. I'm not sure if Hollywood does have anyone right now what with all the mainstream actors/actresses being too concerned about being anything other than an underfed waif.

Yeah, but The Producers is a straight up comedy. It seems they picked Kidman mostly to have a big Hollywood name in it.

True, sad but true about the probable reason for Kidman's casting. I am afraid of what this remake is going to do. Somehow the thought of remaking a Mel Brooks movie is just unsettling.

I wouldn't worry about that aspect. It's not exactly a remake, as the only real difference is that a bunch of song and dance routines have been added. And I believe that the actors who portrayed Roger De Bris and Carmen Ghia are the same ones from the Broadway show. The only dodgy aspect I see is the casting of Kidman.

Good news. I've just learned that Nicole Kidman had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Maybe they'll now cast the actress from the Broadway production.

Nicole is out. Uma Thurman is in. Sorry, Gordon.
Brooks isn't directing. Susan Stroman, who directed the play, is. Here's the IMDB page for the movie.

The important question. Can she sing? If not they'd be better off getting Britney Spears (KIDDING!).

This movie looks so awful, at least what I've seen in the commercials. Broderick is catatonic, Lane is way over the top. Spend the ten bucks admission price on the DVD of the 1968 original instead.

We screened this movie this past August 30th. I thought it was awful. I didn't understand why Broderick chose the annoyingly off-putting histrionics that his character exhibits, I didn't understand the bit of how the show would be more successful if it was a flop, and I just thought the entire thing was way too campy and corny.

I was amazed at how bland and non-charismatic Broderick was in the TV version of "The Music Man". He's not all that great a singer or dancer, but that could be overlooked if he'd had the proper panache and flamboyance that the part of Harold Hill required.

I'm iffy on the casting here; while they carried it off on Broadway, there's a difference between Broadway and the screen. Frequently, a great Broadway performance just looks weird on screen, like the performer is playing for audience reactions that just don't come in movies as opposed to the stage.

Luigi: I didn't understand the bit of how the show would be more successful if it was a flop...

Personally, I thought it was clearly explained. Basically what they're doing is raising way more money then they actually need to make a Broadway production. Each of the little old ladies thinks she is the sole investor of the production and is promised at least fifty percent of the take. If the production is a flop, none of these little old ladies will expect any worthwhile returns so Max and Leo can slip off to Rio de Janario relatively unimpeded. But since it was a hit the little old ladies are each expecting their fifty percent. And since you can't have more than one hundred percent, there's going to be a lot more scrutiny and Max and Leo get prosecuted for fraud.

Thanks.

Right, it wasn't that the show was more successful as a flop, but that a producer can pocket more money (between unspent capital and what meager profit it makes that doesn't need to be shared with the "angels"). In this case, they raised more than twice their costs in capital, and planned to quietly pocket it and fly to Rio.

A lot of recent musical remakes have been filmings of stage revivals -- just recently I saw Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma!, filmed from the London stage. When filmed from an actual performance, with the audience reaction, it is a much better performance than if it is filmed in an empty house. When acted on a movie set as though it were on a stage, it is often just pathetic.

In the original, Bialystock and Bloom raised 25,000%. Also, the "scheme" began as an off the cuff remark by Bloom that lit up Max's eye, when he raised $2,000 more than he needed, for what turned out to be a one-night flop. ("Under the right circumstances, a producer can make more money with a flop, then he can with a hit.") Leo called it "creative accounting."

I had heard that Brooks now wants to make a Broadway musical out of his 1974 classic Young Frankenstein. Wonder if he can get the now-retired-from-movies Gene Hackman to reprise his role as the blind man. He was hilarious in the movie.

After watching (again) the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last night, when Larry David and David Schwimmer do The Producers on Broadway, I began to think that the movie may have been funny (which it wasn't) with those two, instead of with Lane and Broderick. That episode of CYE had one of the last appearances anywhere of Anne Bancroft prior to her death.