Mel Brooks thought there was ‘no reason’ to make The Producers into a musical
The original Broadway production won 12 Tony Awards.
US actor and writer Mel Brooks has said he thought there was “no reason” to make his 1967 hit film The Producers into a musical.
The 98-year-old, who won an original screenplay Oscar for the film, said he was initially reluctant to adapt it for the stage but relented through the persistence of a producer.
Brooks told The Guardian: “David Geffen called me every day. I said, ‘David, it’s a perfectly good little movie.
“I won the Academy Award for my screenplay. It’s been honoured and saluted enough.
“There’s no reason to make it a musical.’ Then the next day, he called me again. He never stopped calling me.
“And finally, I said, ‘Well, he’s not a dumb guy, so maybe there is something’.”
A London production of the critically acclaimed musical, which ended its run of shows at the Menier Chocolate Factory on March 1, will transfer to the West End this autumn.
The original Broadway production, about a scheme to create the biggest flop in theatre history that backfires, won 12 Tony Awards.
Based on Brooks’ film, starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, the musical follows producer Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom, who hire a neo-Nazi playwright and an incompetent director and lead actor hoping they will be able to keep their investors’ money in anticipation of the show’s closure.
In 2005 a West End production of The Producers, staged at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, won three awards, including best new musical, at the Olivier Awards.
This same year a musical film adaptation, starring Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell was released.
The Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of The Producers opens at the West End’s Garrick Theatre on September 15, with previews from August 30.
