A couple years ago, my friend and I came up with the germ of an idea for a movie plot, centered on a man who — after a near-fatal accident — began to see life as one big giant musical and corresponded to this discovery accordingly, even when his perplexed local citizens couldn’t understand his actions or point-of-view. Little did we know, though, a similar-minded movie was already in the works at Disney called Bob: The Musical. The in-the-works production focuses on an everyman who — upon getting a nasty blow to the noggin — starts to instantly hear the songs inside everyone’s hearts as his life is turned into a musical.
Mild jealously aside, I’m very curious to see what is cooked up here if it actually comes into fruition, which is looking more-and-more likely. Earlier this year, Tom Cruise joined the film to play the titular character, with Academy Award-winning director Michael Hazanavicius (The Artist) attached to helm a screenplay by Allan Loeb, who penned Cruise’s first-and-only-other musical appearance to date, Rock of Ages. As for the songs, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez — composers you may not know by name but are very familiar with their work thanks to their continuously-cranked ballads from Frozen and “The Book of Mormon” — would write the tunes.
Well, Cruise and Hazanavicius are still attached according to recent reports, but it looks as though the rest exited stage left. Loeb’s work is to be re-written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author-turned-screenwriter Michael Chabon (John Carter), while Disney’s other Oscar-winning songwriter Bret McKenzie, the one half of Flight of the Conchords behind songs in both 2011’s The Muppets and last year’s Muppets Most Wanted but most predominately “Man or Muppet,” signed to produce original songs for this musical.
Though MacKenzie is only the second musician to take the reigns over the music, Chabon also replaces Mike Bender (Not Another Teen Movie), John August (Frankenweenie) and partners Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (City Slickers) before him. Hopefully this delayed process is a sign of Disney wanting to make the best movie and not a sign of this not quite working out. If Chabon can’t quite make this work, though, I know a couple writers who could (probably) help the company out. I’m just saying, we had ideas.
With these two writers essentially retooling the project, this one is still a little while away from completion. But if this weekend’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation can make Cruise a viable box office star again, perhaps Disney will become inclined to bump this one further up the line. If not, Cruise has more than enough to choose from. In addition to Mena coming out early next year, he’s already been courted for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and even Top Gun 2. The man will run towards one project or another. [Variety]
