OK, so the music snob in me is not thrilled that someone like David Bowie would appear in a teen romance with a High School Musical star. But, luckily I don't take these things all that seriously and I'm sure I'll get over it. Variety reports that the music legend is currently in talks to star in the musical Will. Todd Graff (Camp) co-wrote the script with Josh Cagan and Graff will also direct.

The coming-of-age story centers on an outcast teen who befriends a like-minded girl who regrettably also runs with the popular crowd. Vanessa Hudgens plays the popular girl Sam, who after struggling with a stutter, has finally made it to the cool table. Liam Aiken will play her socially inept band mate. Remember this is a musical, so the story doesn't stop with the usual 'opposites attract' teen romance. The two then go on to "form an unlikely bond through their shared love of music. They assemble a like-minded crew of misfits and form a rock group to perform in a battle of the bands competition at their school."

The cast also includes Lisa Kudrow (who really does deserve to work more; the woman is hilarious), and Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights). Bowie is still in negotiations, so there is no word on which character he would be playing in the film. Part of me hopes it will just be a cameo, à la Zoolander. Will is set to start shooting in Austin, Texas in February and should hit theaters (with or without Mr. Ziggy Stardust) later this year.

Roger Corman is well-known for being a director and producer of over 300 low-budget films, many of them in the horror category. He is probably most famous for his adaptations of nine different Edgar Allen Poe stories. Between 1960 and 1964, Corman directed House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Terror, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Tomb of Ligeia. Seven of these films also starred the late, great Vincent Price, and established both Corman and Price in the genre.

Even more impressive is the fact that he churned out five other films during those four years. He's a movie-making machine, folks. Even today Corman continues to produce tons of "schlock" films, and is king of that genre even though he has only directed two films since 1971. He was an enormous influence on directors like Quentin Tarantino, who thrived on the many "Roger Corman presents" films that came out while he was growing up. Tarantino even has his own line of "Quentin Tarantino presents" films, and the upcoming Grind House owes part of its lineage to Corman's own Death Race 2000.

The Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles hosts a special exhibition celebrating Corman's Edgar Allen Poe films, and will be open October 21st through November 18th. As a fan of bad puns, I had to use the tagline from Drkrm's page about the event: "We pay tribute to them, the legendary Roger Corman and the late Vincent Price with this exhibition of their greatest work together, the likes of which we will see ... NEVERMORE!"

[Thanks John]


Related stories:

Roger Corman on Death Race Remake

Disney Awash in Corman

Roger Corman Honored in Hawaii

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]