Webber, Brightman & Crawford at Phantom NY Opening / WireImage
Hollywood has made millions of dollars off of sequels; now it is the Broadway's turn. Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced that he has written the music for a sequel to his smash international hit Phantom of the Opera and hopes to stage it in 2009. Ok then. We have had the movie-to-musical experience and the movie-to musical-to movie deal; now we can begin to squeeze more life out of shows by coming up with sequels. This should get very interesting.
Sir Andrew has been quoted as saying...
"I've made a decision that I will do The Phantom of the Opera sequel. And I have met with a couple people today who have persuaded me to do it, who I will not reveal, but it's a very exciting day for me. . . It's going to be very exciting, and I can reveal that it will be set in New York."
The new musical is will follow Mr. Phantom to New York City (can you say "Phantom Takes Manhattan"?) and is set at Coney Island. The show will reportedly take place in 1900 and will reunite our leading man with Christine. Earlier, Webber was using the book Phantom in Manhattan as the inspiration/source material for the project but at this point that is not the case.
I love the idea of a Coney Island locale. My first thought is: will there be some fantastic roller coaster special effect that can rival the falling chandelier? Pause here whilst I admit that I was NEVER a fan of the chandelier - when I saw Phantom the first time, the chandelier fell and I thought, "that was it?" A friend of mine saw the show and the chandelier got stuck "mid-fall" - hysterical.
Back to the sequel. The show will have book and music by Sir Andrew and the lyrics will be written by Glenn Slater. Earlier reports had Webber reuniting with Tim Rice for this project, but that turned out to be incorrect info. Slater is on board having previously penned new songs for the B'way version of The Little Mermaid and is working on the upcoming Sister Act as well as a musical version of the Coen Brothers' film The Hudsucker Proxy. Jack O'Brien (Hairspray) is expected to direct and Bob Crowley (Mary Poppins) will take on the design tasks.
There have already been so many rumors about this show and most of them have turned out to be false, but I can't help letting you in on another one that I heard. Word on the street is that Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman have both agreed to return to the roles that made them famous. Who knows if this is true, but if it is - WOW! That is how they do it in Hollywood; the stars always come back for the first sequel.
If Phantom Takes Manhattan (that is my title, not the actual title of the show) is a huge hit, we can expect more and more sequels. Here are my suggestions for some sequels: Cats II: Felines vs. Canines (the junkyard isn't big enough for cats and dogs - one of them has to go - they battle in dance and song), Grease: The Reunion (20 years later the kids from Rydell High return to find out that they are no longer cool - Rizzo has 5 kids, Sandy is a Avon representative and Danny Zuko teaches geometry at Rydell and has a pocket protector - hilarity ensues). Oh and there is another breed of sequel in the Alien vs. Predator mode - where you mash two shows together. They could do Oklahoma vs. Chicago (Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly end up in Oklahoma and duke it out for Curly's affections until Laurie tries to reclaim her man. The Dream Ballet could be a very Fosse meets DeMille.) Ok, those are my ideas - what are yours?
~ See You On The Aisle
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Eechi.
As much as the idea intrigues me, I think that the Phantom of the Opera should be left alone. Sometimes two can be a crowd.
I really must say, i don't like the idea of a sequel to Phantom- it just to me has always been a sort of classic. It reminds my of the movie Lion King, i loved that movie and then they made a sequel and it was lame, and then another one untill finnaly it was basiclly a cartoon tv show that had yearly breaks.
At least for my sequels ruin good shows that don't need to be furthered in plot. I say, leave phantom alone. I know Andrew Loyd Webber is amazing and if anyone can pull it off- it's him, but it all just seems to clique.
oh, how about "Lease" a sequel to RENT- that could be good. HA. HA. not so good.
He probably does need the money considering his last few shows have been spectacular flops. But did you hear the story of how his cat deleted what he had written for a "Cats" sequel?? Maybe this time we'll get a ghost to get rid of whatever he writes this time.
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