Ever since it first premiered in London’s West End in 1989, there’s been talk of turning the Schonberg and Boubil musical Miss Saigon into a film. However most attempts have collapsed due to the cost of a movie that takes in such massive events as the end of the Vietman War (even on stage it was one of the most expensive productions ever, and in some countries entire theatres had to be built specifically to house it because it’s so massive).
However musical fans will be pleased to hear that despite the show having closed several years ago in both London and New York, a new attempt is being made to get it onto the screen. Variety reports that Paula Wagner, the producer who was Tom Cruise’s business partner for many years, but has recently left him and their United Artists gig behind, is trying to get financing for a film version of Miss Saigon, which will be a directing vehicle for Lee Daniels, helmer of Shadowboxing and the upcoming Precious.
As yet, Daniels is only looking at Miss Saigon as a possibility for his next film, because he’s aware of how difficult it is to get big scale musicals off the ground. However having someone like Paula Wagner involved should certainly grease the wheels. She’ll be producting alongside Cameron Mackintosh, who brought the original musical to the stage.
Miss Saigon, loosely based on Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, is a love story about an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl, set just before the fall of Saigon. The current hope is to film the movie version next year, for release in 2011.
If this adaptation is successful, it may also help get a film version of Boubil and Schonberg’s other hit musical, Les Miserables, off the ground, which is another show that’s long been rumoured for a movie adaptation, but no one’s ever been able to get the funding for it.