NINE Producer Weinstein Talks Musicals, NINE Casting, and Rob Marshall

Harvey Weinstein, producer of Nine, sat down with TheWrap editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman to discuss the movie.  In a candid Q & A, they discussed the business of making movie musicals, the casting for Nine, and director Rob Marshall, among other things.

Weinstein admitted that at first he had no interest in musicals: "I never really liked musicals until I saw how cynical Bob Fosse was with Chicago" which he saw as a child.  After seeing it, he thought to himself, "Wow, if you can do a musical with this kind of attitude, this is the kind of thing I want to do."

Weinstein and director Rob Marshall first paired up for the Oscar winning film version of Chicago in 2002, and they got the itch to do another musical but had trouble deciding on which one.

Weinstein tells TheWrap of his and Marshall's meeting with Arthur Laurents to inform him of their ideas for making a movie version of Gypsy: "It was great to sit there with Rob Marshall after he'd won the Oscar and have Arthur Laurents tell us that we were absolutely wrong about everything. It's a good humbling experience, trust me."

They then decided on Nine because, as Weinstein felt, "it is a different kind of musical."

On how they gathered their big-name cast, Weinstein credits the appeal of working with Rob Marshall, and said "Everybody in the world really came out and auditioned for the film."

To read the full interview in TheWrap, click here.

Nine will have a limited release on December 18th in New York and Los Angeles and will then go on wide release on December 25th.

The big screen adaptation of Nine the Musical stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman. The all-star cast is directed by Rob Marshall, who also helmed critically-acclaimed 2002 musical Chicago - which garnered six Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actress nod for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Daniel Day-Lewis replaced the previously attached Javier Bardem in the leading role of Guido Contini, Bardem left the project citing exhaustion. Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench star in the film as well. Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and is based off of Fredrico Fellini's movie 8 1/2. The play tells the story of a highly stressed director living in VenIce Trying to juggle all of the women in his life.

The Broadway production of Nine, directed by Tommy Tune and choreographed by Thommie Walsh, opened on May 9, 1982 at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 729 performances. The cast included Raúl Juliá as Guido, Karen Akers as Luisa, Liliane Montevecchi as Liliane, Anita Morris as Carla, Shelly Burch as Claudia, and Taina Elg as Guido's mother. Replacements later in the run included Bert Convy and Sergio Franchi as Guido, Maureen McGovern as Luisa, and Priscilla Lopez as Liliane. The musical won five Tony Awards, including best musical. The first revival of the 1982 Tony Award-winning musical hit Broadway in 2003 led by Antonio Banderas-who made his Broadway debut in the role of Guido. Laura Benanti, Jane Krakowski,Mary Stuart Masterson, and Chita Rivera rounded out the original revival cast.

Nine revolves around one central character, Guido Contini a film director in the Fellini mold. He is contracted to write and direct a film, but is unable to come up with a suitable plot. After recent box office failures, he finds himself drifting towards a nervous breakdown. Guido finds himself examining his past flawed relationships with the many women who have come through his life and the struggle to act his mature age of 40--as opposed to nine. For more information visit the official NINE website by clicking here.