“The Greatest Showman” director teased that the movie *could* end up on Broadway
If you swooned over Zac Efron and Zendaya in The Greatest Showman, we have some amazing news for you. Director Michael Gracey recently expressed interest in The Greatest Showman ending up on Broadway. In fact, his vision for a stage production is already forming!
Gracey spoke with Entertainment Weekly about all of the work that went into filming such a visually stunning movie. Remember those seemingly-effortless romantic rope tricks in “Rewrite the Stars?” Yeah, it took a lot of takes to get them exactly right.
“‘Rewrite the Stars’ was incredibly challenging. You’d have this beautiful shot of Zendaya flying around Zac and Zac’s in the foreground and it’s just perfect. And just as she’s about to sing the line that you need in that moment, the rope twists and her whole body moves and that line you want, she’s facing away from camera!” said Gracey, a commercial director making his feature film debut. “It’s things like that you’re like, ‘Ughhh!’ And also a lot of the jumping and swinging and the two of them coming together, there are so many takes of that being so awkward and so clunky as they don’t quite swing past each other, they just slam into each other.”
Gracey also spoke about how difficult it is to film artistic scenes. “All of a sudden what’s meant to be balletic and slow and wonderful effortless feel, all of a sudden becomes incredibly brutal and violent as these bodies go slamming into each other,” he continued. “That was a lot of takes and a credit to Zac and Zendaya — they were so bruised but they just kept going again and again and again.”
So, how would The Great Showman work on Broadway?
Adapting such a high-production film for the stage can seem difficult, but Gracey sees the potential.
"When I was pitching the film, the great thing about doing a musical film is you have this amazing piece that could then go straight to Broadway. Instead of CG animals, you could do puppets like War Horse or The Lion King," he said. "I think that’s an incredibly appealing idea. It would depend on the success of the film but I do believe it would make an incredible stage production."
We’re definitely hoping that this could one day happen. It would definitely be interesting to see The Greatest Showman on Broadway!