Tom Hooper, man of the moment after beating off David Fincher to claim the best director Oscar for The King’s Speech, is rumoured to be in contention to direct a full scale, live-action adaptation of classic musical Les Miserables for Universal. If deals can be done, then this would be his next project.
Hollywood has fallen in love with musicals again in the last decade – with varying degrees of success – and the prospect of a full screen adaptation of the musical (which has, amazingly, never been done before) is exciting. Based on the musical, which in turn is based on Victor Hugo’s novel, the film would require a mighty cast of actors, preferably ones able to sing, too. Could this be the next great musical Hollywood has been waiting for?
It will be interesting to see what liberties the studio will take the film – i.e. what will be cut and what won’t – and how much of the dialogue is sung rather than spoken. The stage production has a range of thrilling songs, but will they all make it into this proposed version? One thing’s for certain, and that is that ‘Les Mis’ has a significant following – it has continually sold out shows in London’s West End for over 20 years – and so there should be a market for this.