The network is planning to bring “Hairspray” into homes this December.
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Originally a 1988 John Waters movie, Hairspray was adapted for Broadway in 2002, and showered Tonys on lyricist-composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and writers Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan.
As far as casting goes (please let Zac Efron reprise his role as Link!), Greenblatt says that no deals have been inked just yet. TV Line reports that the network will air a two-hour special next month paying tribute to longtime sitcom director James Burrows to celebrate his 1,000th TV episode.
From the Austrian Alps to Neverland and the yellow brick road of Oz, NBC’s live productions of stage musicals have taken us to some pretty fantastical places. NBC execs admitted they didn’t expect Trump’s presidential candidacy to have legs, and that Trump’s brief screen time on SNL is dwarfed by the amount of time he’s been granted on news shows like Meet the Press.
“We got out of the business”, Greenblatt said flatly. That was June and July when most of us thought he would be in the back of the political arena. That title seems really fun and I think it will be really great live. Greenblatt then interjected to laughs: “I think Ricky made a decision about returning, but we haven’t”.
Greenblatt said the network did, in fact, end its business ties with Trump, who will not be part of “Celebrity Apprentice” going forward. When asked if they were looking at stars from the 2007 film version of the musical, he replied, “We haven’t even gotten that far, but I don’t think we’re going to replicate the movie”. We had a couple businesses that we were doing with him – Apprentice and the [Miss USA and Miss Universe] pageants.
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NBC has made a tradition out of broadcasting live musicals each holiday season over the past few years.
