Showgirls: The Musical? God Help Us All

Showgirls, perhaps the most notorious film ever to garner the highly problematic NC-17 rating, is being adapted into a stage musical by the movie's screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Even having penned the likes of Flashdance and Basic Instinct, Eszterhas is in serious danger of Showgirls being the one film mentioned when one day someone has to write his obituary (one could understand if he chose to distance himself from the film, but not Joe). With the aid of the producers of Urinetown (check the link, I am not making that up) the musical version of Showgirls will soon be appearing on stage in, appropriately enough, Las Vegas. The opening number will be a little ditty called "Where the Hell Are My Clothes?" (OK, that one I made up).

The 1995 film tells the story of Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley, in an obvious attempt to distance herself from the teeny bopper character she had played on TV's Saved By the Bell), a tempermental and frequently naked young woman who claws her way to the top of the Vegas Showgirl profession. Eszterhas is well aware of the flim's shortcomings. New York Magazine quotes him as saying, "It's a movie that I wish I'd have written differently, and I wish would have been cast differently." This new musical version "celebrates the over-the-top and campy nature of the piece."

[via TMZ]