Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

http://i45.tinypic.com/14jxmqt.jpg

Per Wikipedia:
Although numerous films of the Les Misérables story have been made, no adaptation of the stage musical has yet been produced. A film adaptation of the musical has been in development, on and off, since the late 1980s. Alan Parker was reported to be attached to the adaptation at an early stage.[17] In 1992, Cameron Mackintosh announced that the movie would be directed by Bruce Beresford and co-produced by Tri-Star Pictures,[18] but this project was abandoned some time later. After several years in development hell, interest was renewed in late 2005.

Does anyone know the developmental status of a musical film version of LES MISERABLES? After all my Disney threads, I was thinking that this would be awesome if Disney adaptated the musical into an animated movie. I feel bad that my all-time favorite musical can only be visually enjoyed on the stage. It would be great if everyone had a chance to see the music in a movie.

Does anyone know if Disney has tried to adapt famous Broadway shows?

I certainly know that Disney would never touch Jesus Christ Superstar (my second favorite musical) since it's about J.C.!;)


There was once a Disney comic book adaptation of LES MISERABLES starring the Donald Duck family:
http://www.arlenecharris.com/Media/CAST.JPG

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

This material seems a bit dark for a Disney animated film, no?

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

If Disney did LES MIS in the same way/style as BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, it would be awesome. I'm amazed that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is rated G. It seems like a PG-rated animated film. But many Disney films are pretty dark:

Pinocchio: child kidnapping, kids smoking and drinking, turning into donkeys
Dumbo: elephant getting drunk
Bambi: parent getting shot
Cinderella: Cinderella's family are a bunch of evil biotches
Peter Pan: just overall pretty creepy
Lady and the Tramp: prude falling in love with a bum
101 Dalmations: skinning dog furs
The Rescuers: one of the creepiest Disney films - child kidnapping, held in some house in a swamp
The Little Mermaid: we all know about the phallic imagery everywhere, haha..the villainess is one of Disney's scariest.
Beauty and the Beast: pretty violent
Tarzan: villain gets lynched at the end


Think of it this way, I've never seen a child not go to a Broadway show. Therefore, there have been tons of kids that have seen Les Mis, Phantom of the Opera, etc.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

I saw "Les Miserables" around 1990 or 1991 and I distinctly remember an ad with the picture of Cosette but she was holding a pair of movie tickets. And the ad said something labout Cameron Mackintosh "presenting" the movie soon. I always wondered what happened with that project. Seemed like it was cruising right along at the time.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

an animated version - oh god no!

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

There is an "Animaniacs" short called "Les Miseranimals", but I'm sure some liberties were taken. It's a Rita & Runt sketch and Bernadette Peters is the voice of Rita.

That is probably about as close to an animated version as you're gonna get.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

Also keep in mind that Disney already did a animated adaption of a Victor Hugo novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I somewhat liked that fim, the music was very good and so was the animation. However, they got a lot of flak at the time about the movie because you have a character singing about Hellfire and then he sees a female fiqure writhing in the flames. Not to mention the fact that they just had to add the singing gargloyles as comic sidekicks and the fact that the ending was a slap in the face to the very story it was adapting (i.e. the "beautiful" people not only end up together in the end, but the "ugly" character places their hands together). As an adaption of the book the film was horrible (of course what they were thinking about when they decided on adapting the book for a kids movie I'll never know.

Long story short, I think Disney should stay very far away from adapting the musical, they just wouldn't be able to keep the dark stuff in without some parents complaining that it would scar their children.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

If they do live action, I see it looking like Gangs of New York stylistically, except with singing. Problem is that would cost a lot of money, and despite a slight resurgence of interest, non-animated musicals are still a tough sell to the general public. I would love to see it, but I just don't see anyone having the cajones to finance it properly.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

Plus, it isn't a "fun" musical either. The movie musicals that have been hits in the last several years have been lighter fare like Hairspray, Chicago, Mamma Mia, and of course High School Musical.

Re: Live-action or animated film of LES MISERABLES musical?
 

Exactly. "Master of the House" is the only real moment in the whole story that could be considered a fun moment, everything else is quite dark.