Carrie Returns to Broadway?

By Nick Dawson On October 29, 2009

It's fair to say that's been a minor fascination of mine on this site has been to write about all the movies that are being turned into musicals and operas, as well as film directors who have been recruited to direct operas. Particularly with the former, the reaction to these little gobbets of news tends to be "Really?!" (Fight Club and Spider Man are two recent examples of movies that are, against all odds, in development to become Broadway shows.)

While it's been a little quiet in this area for a while, there now comes some rather momentous news: Carrie is coming to Broadway. Or rather, coming back to Broadway. While it's weird enough that Brian De Palma's horror classic could be thought of as being suitable for "musical-ization," the idea was actually put into action way back in 1988. The result was a show that played for only five performances and lost $8 million.

According to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, however, the producing team of Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum - who have scored hits with the shows Rent, Avenue Q and West Side Story - are planning to bring the biggest Broadway flop ever back to the stage.

Here's Riedel's take on these startling developments:

Some on Broadway think ego may have gotten the better of Seller and McCollum. After all, if they can take the greatest flop of all time and make something of it, they may in fact be the best producers since Ziegfeld. ...But these guys aren't stupid, and they may be onto something. Carrie was bad. But some of it, especially the score, was pretty thrilling, those who saw it say.

We will watch what emerges in the coming months with great interest.