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" In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity. "
Craig Zadan
Bad
In The Past
You
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" People think, 'Oh, you're doing 'The Wiz' because 'Empire' is such a big hit.' The truth is, staging this musical has been a dream of ours since the '90s, but the rights were tied up. It's just coincidental that, this year, when we were choosing a new musical, the rights were cleared. "
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" Neil and I share a desire for great quality in our work. If we are offered projects, look at projects, or consider projects that don't have that quality, then we don't do them. "
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" We wanted to take on social and political and LGBTQ stories which no one at the upper level of the entertainment industry ever really wants to do. So you have to fight, and you have to persuade, and you have to manipulate the studios and the networks. And you have to go back - over and over again - until they say yes. "
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" A lot of people feel that 'Music Man' is a good movie musical. "
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" Basically, we had the idea of doing this production of 'Steel Magnolias,' and we spoke to Queen Latifah about it, and she got excited. "
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" Neil and I are most thrilled that we were able to bring musical theatre to the enormous audience that 'The Sound of Music' reached. "
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" I don't think we're going to break the law in terms of what you can or can't do on TV. We're looking to do something edgy, different, and special. "
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" Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw 'Chicago' or 'Hairspray.' "
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" We've spoken to a lot of friends who are stars who could be great, and they say to us, 'Look, if you were doing a movie musical, and we could pre-record and lip-synch, sure. But live? So if we hit a bad note it's there for posterity? We're not going to go out there without a safety net.' People are scared to death of that. "
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" I think we sublimated our Broadway desires by doing theater in Hollywood - not on stage but by doing the movies of 'Chicago' and 'Hairspray' and also musicals on TV. We did Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' and 'Gypsy' and 'Annie.' Even 'Smash' was like doing theater. "
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