Weinstein Company pursues PIPPIN the Movie

[Brick]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 9:34pm

Really? The piece is so theatrical. I can't imagine the necessary bloodiness of Charlemagne's court put on film and still keeping the irony...
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[Movidude742]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 9:52pm

I don't see how it could work. It is not like the leading player can request the projector be stopped. Tho with digital projection nearly being the norm, you can bring the house lights up on a timed cue . . .

I am just saying if they have to completely change the end to make it work on film I am not all that interested. I hate when they make so many wholesale changes to a property. I mean only 4 lines of the book of Rock of Ages made it into the movie, which was a travesty.

(I am a repeat attender of that show and the movie was a complete waste of my time . . . and I was paid to see it)

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 9:54pm

I remember this was first talked about back after the CHicago success got people looking at other musicals to adapt--but I guess the revival has added more interest again. I agree it will be hard to adapt (wasn't it at one time even talked about as an animated movie?)

[MaddieBB12]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:00pm

But remember, similar steps were taken for Wicked and Spring Awakening and even Aida years ago and we have yet to get anything.

[darquegk]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:02pm

I think that onstage, Pippin depends heavily upon the tropes of the stage being deconstructed one by one, so a cinematic Pippin would need to do the same: be a great movie musical and at the same time utterly tear apart the movie musical genre.

If they really embraced the "film" nature the way the stage embraced the vaudeville in Fosse or circus in Paulus, they could do some great things. Like, imagine the ending, as the film breaks down the way the stage does: green screen effects suddenly go out. Boom mics descend- soundstage begins to come apart, cameras pull back and lose their "film look" filters, as costumes are repossessed, the props are taken away, caterers leave, and suddenly Pippin is left in an empty soundstage.

The key will be maintaining a sense of unnerving magic realism, I think. Onstage, the intrusion of bits of reality into the clown show is what becomes unsettling. On film, you would have to do the opposite, and allow the "reality" of Pippin's world to suddenly take on amusing but unsettling bits of clown-show. Has Terry Gilliam ever directed a movie musical? He's the man for this project, I honestly believe.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:06pm

Everyone relax. Weinstein just likes to option stuff. That doesn't mean it will ever come close to seeing the light of day.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:06pm

Everyone relax. Weinstein just likes to option stuff. That doesn't mean it will ever come close to seeing the light of day.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:06pm

MiraMax got the rights back in 2003, but when the company dissolved, PIPPIN was scrapped. They discussed Hugh Jackman for the film, but Jackman wanted to do Carousel and his Houdini projects first.

Now Harvey is reviving his interest in the film adaptation...again? I can't see this actualizing.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:06pm

Everyone relax. Weinstein just likes to option stuff. That doesn't mean it will ever come close to seeing the light of day.

[kieranbec]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 10:13pm

It might work if they film it inside a theatre a la Anna Karenina.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 11:18pm

I have often thought about this, it could work but it would require a GENIUS director. The key will be surrealism, if they can achieve something in the style of Tommy or the original JCS film, it could be a massive hit but it could also be killed very easily by trying to turn it into a conventional musical film.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 11:35pm

Zeta-Jones for Fastrada!

[all that jazz]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 11:45pm

Either her or Michele Pfeiffer.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 4/16/13 at 11:45pm

Repeat post.

Updated On: 4/16/13 at 11:45 PM

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 12:35am

I can see the ending working a LOT like the final scenes of Fosse's "All That Jazz" where you see the cameras, equipment, etc. I've always imagined the finale bits of a "Follies" movie in the same manner. Obviously instead of visiting a theatre, they'd be visiting and MGM style studio and "Live, Laugh, and Love" being a Busby Berkley style number where everything crashes and pulls back like in Blazing Saddles.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 12:45am

Get Joe Dante to direct and make it 3D.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 12:47am

This has Paul Verhoeven written all over it. He's the only one who can truly bring these characters to life on the screen.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 1:47am

They'd be better off just filming the revival, it's a better representation of the show than the piece of crap 1981 version anyway. Although I know that will probably never happen.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 2:00am

You guys realize that just because you can't conceive how to make a movie that others might, right?

[rhdery]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 2:10am

I hope they do it. I have been bored to death with film lately, and whether the end product worked or didn't, I am actually excited about the idea-- and I would love to see all the circus elements from the new staging brought into any film.

An imperfect Pippin adaption would be better than 2/3 of the movies released any given year- so let the film be made! But I do require that Ben Vereen at least gets a cameo.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 7:10am

http://m.deadline.com/2013/04/weinstein-co-sets-james-ponsoldt-to-script-pippin/

This seems to be really happening!

[BwayFan4]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 8:06am

I wouldn't be too concerned about the "movie" aspect ruining the theatricality of PIPPIN... don't forget, Pippin is a play within a play... so now it could be a play within a movie... all (or most) of the theatricality can stay in tact.

Hopefully they would show a little bit more background about the sadistic theatre troupe who performs PIPPIN... and even where they get the guy to play the role of Pippin (I always thought they should bring Pippin up from the audience rather than have him appear from backstage to make that concept clearer, but then again, Diane Paulus never asked for my opinion

Anyway, I think there would be a lot of good to come from a musical movie of PIPPIN...would love to see what they do!

[tazber]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 8:14am

It could work in dozens of ways. It just needs to be re-imagined for the parameters of film.

Posted: 4/17/13 at 9:06am

Back in the Miramax days Zach Braff (of scrubs fame) was frantic to do it.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 4/17/13 at 9:16am

There was a screenplay floated around the last time it was announced the Weinsteins were interested in Pippin. It was very faithful to the Fosse version of the play, at times scarily so (not surprising; I remember hearing that Pippin was the first show they were taken to see on Broadway as kids and it was one of their inspirations for entering the entertainment world), and its central conceit was that a young man facing the same life decisions as the character of Pippin comes in to see the show, allowing us the opportunity to see the iconic "Magic to Do" opening scene as Fosse staged it originally, and then the Leading Player (who as I recall was specifically scripted to be female in this draft) pulls him out of the audience to "be" Pippin.

From there, they enter the world of the show (this is the part where the film "opens up" to actual settings), with lots of fantastical elements representing a heightened theatrical world. The best comparison I can make is Tim Burton's Big Fish, though it had skeins of Across the Universe to it as well.

Apparently, the scripted ending was a compromise between the original Fosse ending and the new "Theo ending" that has been a part of the show for some time now. Perhaps that's a bit of an inaccurate statement, as the original closing line that was the subject of dispute between Schwartz and Fosse was no longer there, but it's the easiest way to explain what it was. You can skip the specifics in parentheses below if you like.

(As I recall, Catherine asks Pippin if he feels like he's compromised, if he feels that he's a coward, to which he says no both times; when asked how he feels, he sings the "magic shows and miracles" verse, and the screenwriter seemed to be struggling with how to convey this, but during the verse, he realizes that though he'll never be completely sure if settling for "less" was the best idea, he knows he wants to be with her, and that's good enough for him; from there, it transitions to the "Theo ending.")

There wasn't much in terms of new material, except for one song for Charlemagne and Pippin that replaced "Welcome Home" called "Back in the Bosom" (I believe it was also titled "Back Home Again" or something like that at one point). It was very plot-related, probably wouldn't have even won the Best New Song Oscar, and was recently used in the Deaf West revival; some may recall I wondered where it was in the current revival, only to discover there was no song there. I guess Schwartz got tired of waiting to hear the result of the new material?

I look forward with interest to hearing what the screen version of Pippin will be like.