‘PRETTY Woman” – the 1990 movie that made Julia Roberts a star – is going to be turned into a Broadway musical.
Garry Marshall, who directed the movie, will also direct and write the stage adaptation.
Marshall will produce “Pretty Woman” with the Walt Disney Co., which produced and has the rights to the film.
Another producer said to be attached to the project is Peter Schneider, the former Disney executive who shepherded “The Lion King” and “Aida” to Broadway.
Schneider resigned as the head of the Disney Studios last year to pursue a career as an independent Broadway producer (Disney is an investor in his company).
At Disney, Schneider worked with Marshall on “The Princess Diaries.”
Reached in Los Angeles yesterday, Schneider said that while he believed a “Pretty Woman” musical “is an excellent idea, it is premature to say I am involved.”
A cross between “Cinderella” and “Pygmalion,” “Pretty Woman” tells the story of a super-rich corporate raider (Richard Gere in the movie) who hires a hooker with a heart of gold to keep him company for the weekend and ends up falling in love with her.
Smart but unsophisticated, the hooker, under the rich man’s tutelage, develops a taste for opera, fine clothes and expensive wines.
“Pretty Woman” was one of the highest-grossing movies of the 1990s and remains a perennial favorite on video.
One person involved in the project said it’s “a natural for a musical. It’s a romantic comedy with characters you care about, an element of fairy tale and a happy ending.”
But don’t expect the show to hit Broadway anytime soon. A composer and lyricist are still being sought and Marshall, sources say, has yet to begin serious work on the script.
In the meantime, though, he is plunging ahead with yet another musical: “Happy Days,” which is based on the hugely popular TV series he created in the 1970s for ABC.
Marshall is presenting a workshop of the show for potential producers an investors next week at the Falcon Theater, a small venue he owns in Los Angeles.
“That is definitely a project I am keeping my eye on,” said Schneider.
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Producers Fran and Barry Weissler are trying to put together a Broadway revival of Leonard Bernstein’s 1953 musical “Wonderful Town.”
A concert version of the show was staged to great acclaimed by Encores! in the spring of 2000.
That production, which was directed by Kathleen Marshall (no relation to Garry), is the one the Weisslers are interested in re-creating.
The star will likely be Donna Murphy, who received glowing reviews in the Encores! version.
The Weisslers declined to comment yesterday but sources said if a theater can be found, they would like to open the show on Broadway in the spring.
They are also, sources say, toying with the idea of changing to title to “New York: It’s a Wonderful Town.”
I ran that title change by Adolph Green, who, with Betty Comden, wrote the show’s book and lyrics.
“That bit of information hasn’t reached my ears until now, but I think it would be an instant no,” Green said. “It’s awfully cumbersome. Besides, anybody who knows the show knows that ‘Wonderful Town’ means New York.”
Green said he was “excited” about the prospect of the revival.
“The sooner they get it here, the better,” he said.
Based on the popular play “My Sister Eileen,” “Wonderful Town” originally starred Rosalind Russell as a wisecracking writer from Ohio who shares a dinky Greenwich Village flat with her pretty sister, Eileen.
Bernstein’s brassy score contains such gems as “Christopher Street,” “One Hundred Ways” and “Ohio” – as in “Why-o-why, Ohio/Why did I ever leave Ohio?”