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If things go according to plan, Dr. Jekyll will be undergoing one more transformation: to the silver screen.
EW has confirmed that the producers behind Jekyll & Hyde (the musical) are planning a big-screen adaptation, with a hopeful eye toward a 2014 release.
“I think it’s long overdue, a musical version if it,” said Rick Nicita, one of the show’s producers, alongside Phoenix Pictures CEO Mike Medavoy.
Nicita said they reached an agreement with Jekyll & Hyde’s creative team, composer Frank Wildhorn and lyricist/book-writer Leslie Bricusse, just recently.
He added that the success of this season’s big musical, Les Miserables, wasn’t what got the conversation going, but it hasn’t hurt: “I think what it shows is there’s an absolutely appetite out there for musicals, musical with a great story, with a human connection.”
Jekyll & Hyde is also in the midst of a revival on stage, with a bow on Broadway — starring former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis — planned for the spring.
With Wildhorn and Bricusse on-board for a movie, the “very next step” is finding a director, Nicita said, followed by casting and financing. No one is tossing around any dream directing or casting choices, but the temperature around Hollywood has been encouraging: “It’s been, ‘But of course’ as opposed to ‘What’s that?’ or ‘ I don’t think so.’”
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Deborah Cox joins Constantine Maroulis in Broadway-bound production of ‘Jekyll & Hyde’
