Secondhand Plot Gets Broadway Musical Treatment
Filed under: New Line, Family Films
In recycling a movie titled Secondhand Lions, Mark Kaufman of New Line Cinema is being so obviously ironic that he isn't actually being ironic at all. That's okay, though, because Broadway is the least place you'll find true irony these days. In an era that sees movies about musicals adapted into Broadway musicals and then subsequently re-adapted for the screen, irony is a word that has lost all meaning. (It is worse now, in fact, than when Alanis Morissette hit big with that stupid single, titled "Ironic", in which she misused the word a number of times).Anyway, Kaufman is indeed making another secondhand musical out of a movie, which is a trend that just won't quit. I don't remember the original, which stars an awkward-looking Haley Joel Osment sent off to stay the summer with his eccentric uncles, being much of a hit, but considering its high ranking on the IMDb, it does have its fans. I'll admit that I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because I found Robert Duvall to be more hilarious than he could have possibly meant to have been, but aside from being an entertaining celebration of storytelling, the actual story it told wasn't all that interesting. And without Duvall or Michael Caine, the movie would have been a great big bore. So, unless the Broadway production can find an equally delightful pair of actors to play the two uncles, it won't be very good at all.
I still have yet to decide whether or not a(n inevitable) movie version of the musical will qualify as being ironic, since it would then be a third-hand Secondhand Lions. If anything I just like that idea because I like the corny sound of it.
The musical is expected to hit the theater in 2008.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-22-2006 @ 11:29AM
Richard von Busack said...
Don't know who said it, but it bears repeating, "Rain on a wedding day isn't ironic, it's inconvient."
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8-22-2006 @ 11:42AM
Alex said...
What next? A musical of The Horse Whisperer?
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8-22-2006 @ 12:52PM
Cath said...
No, it will be Gilligan's Island, the musical. I only forced myself to sit through Second Hand Lions because friends were in it.
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8-22-2006 @ 1:43PM
Robin said...
I don't know how true this is but I've heard that was the intentional to misuse the meaning of the word Ironic.
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