Broadway (and Elton John) ‘Wears Prada,’ Brock Hudson Biopic

Anna D. Shapiro won a Tony Award in 2008 for directing August: Osage County. Later, Meryl Streep would star in the film version of August, much like she starred in the film adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. And soon The Devil Wears Prada will come to Broadway in musical form, under Shapiro’s direction, with a book by Paul Rudnick (Addams Family Values) and songs by Elton John. It’s unlikely that Streep will take her singular interpretation of fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly to the stage to complete this web of interconnectivity, but we can dream (and Streep can sing, too, so please, Queen Meryl, consider the possibilities, and if the answer is still no, THEN GET US PATTI LUPONE). And in case you think these things have nothing to do with you and don’t know the story, Prada concerns a serious young female journalist who takes a job as an assistant to what amounts to the cartoon version of Anna Wintour. Then she learns that no amount of stunning outfits can make her amazing enough for a life in fashion. It happens. And since we’ve already begged Streep to make Broadway Great Again, we’d like to put in a request for an Elton John song called “Cerulean.”

Universal is in talks with screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) to adapt Mark Griffin’s book All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson for a planned biopic to be directed by Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon). Hudson’s story is one of fame and fear, one predicated on the other, because the traditionally masculine sex symbol and star of films like Giant was gay. He spent decades hiding in plain sight, even until his death in 1985, trapped in a Hollywood system that did not allow for openly LGBTQ performers. The recent success of the Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, hinged on music rather than on an uncomfortable exploration of the closet, and the film never really bothered to find out what toll that experience took on Mercury. Instead, it focused on the construction of the band’s hit songs, the singer’s reputation of general flamboyance and Queen’s Live Aid triumph. But LaGravenese knows this terrain very well, having already penned the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, a film that didn’t flinch from the realities of gay oppression in the bad old days, so let’s hope this one gets it right.

Romeo San Vicente is breaking out the short shorts for spring.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/10/broadway-and-elton-john-wears-prada-brock-hudson-biopic/