Movies that were stage shows that were movies: from The Sound of Music to Mean Girls

The mediums of film and musical theatre have both long enjoyed the art of adaptation, as well as the challenges that come with reinterpreting an existing work for a new audience. Stage productions have become films. Films have been adapted for Broadway and the West End. But then there are an eclectic group of films that were initially transformed for the stage before their stage version was later adapted back into a movie – now with extra razzle dazzle.

As the continuing trend for adding sequins and songs to cult and classic films alike shows no sign of slowing, from Cruel Intentions and The Devil Wears Prada to Back to the Future and Mrs. Doubtfire, this exclusive collection of movie to musical to movie musical adaptations will surely only grow larger in the coming years. With the release of Mean Girls and The Color Purple this January signalling the busiest time for this trend since the 2000s, here we highlight 10 examples of adaptations from the stage that owe their origin to the screen.

Director: Robert Wise

Originally under contract to develop film projects at Paramount, when Tony-winning director Vincent J. Donehue was shown a West German film called The Trapp Family (1956) he took the story to Broadway actor Mary Martin instead. Martin immediately sought out the real-life Maria Von Trapp for the rights to play her on stage, and eventually a deal was made with the film’s producers. Before long, Broadway behemoths Rodgers and Hammerstein were on board and The Sound of Music, based on Von Trapp’s memoir, was born.

The renowned film adaptation of the musical stars Julie Andrews as the singing nun who wins the hearts of a stern captain and his seven children. It was the biggest film of 1965 and took the Oscar for best picture, its initial theatrical release continuing for four and a half years.

Director: Bob Fosse

Director and choreographer Bob Fosse made his film directorial debut with this adaptation of Sweet Charity, having also brought the original Broadway production to life. Based on the screenplay for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (1957), the musical follows the charming and optimistic Charity Hope Valentine, a New York ‘taxi dancer’ who thinks her run of bad luck might be over when she meets the introverted Oscar.

Fosse’s wife and partner Gwen Verdon was keen to reprise the role of Charity on film but gave her blessing to friend and eventual star Shirley MacLaine, who had taken the musical to Universal. MacLaine is a delight, while Paula Kelly and Chita Rivera bring the house down with the brassy ‘Big Spender’.

Director: Hal Prince

Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music depicts the tangled web of husbands, wives and former lovers who assemble for a weekend in the country.

Framed by an onstage overture and curtain call, the film adaptation, directed by Broadway legend Hal Prince, was panned upon release and is now impossibly hard to find. Despite some stagnant camerawork undeserving of Sondheim’s material, there is plenty to love. Diana Rigg is delightful as the wily wife keen to turn the tables on her husband’s mistress, played by Elizabeth Taylor. The latter’s star power carries her through, and once brashness gives way to vulnerability Taylor serves a touching rendition of Broadway staple ‘Send in the Clowns’ – written for the late Glynis Johns, who originated the role on stage.

Director: Frank Oz

Best known for kickstarting the Disney Renaissance, the genius writing partnership of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken first found acclaim with their off-Broadway adaptation of Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Four years later, Rick Moranis starred in the film musical as the flower-shop worker who discovers a carnivorous plant that craves human blood.

Frank Oz worked with his long-time collaborator Lyle Conway on the animatronic plant, Audrey II, which was filmed at a slower frame rate to perfect its shrub-like movements. Test audiences loved the film but reacted terribly to its original ending, which saw every character eaten alive and Audrey II ruling Manhattan. Ashman wrote a happier conclusion, with Oz drily noting: “in a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow – in a movie… they’re dead.”

Director: Susan Stroman

Mel Brooks’ musical version of his own zany comedy, The Producers (1967), broke the record for one-day theatre box office takings twice when it opened on Broadway in 2001, collecting a record 12 Tony Awards the same year and making Brooks an EGOT. The tale of two crooked producers bent on opening a guaranteed Broadway flop in a get-rich-quick scheme, the subsequent film adaptation reteamed the production’s leads Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick with director and choreographer Susan Stroman, among other cast and crew.

The film hums with a palpable energy that’s reminiscent of a Broadway show. Extravagantly staged musical set pieces, full body shots that suggest a view from the stalls, and inflated performances that play for the very back row both embrace and emphasise the wacky material’s theatrical roots.

Director: Adam Shankman

A film adaptation of the Broadway show based on John Waters’ Hairspray (1988) was in the works just one year after the riotously camp production won eight Tonys, including best new musical. All three versions follow high schooler Tracy Turnblad as she lands a spot dancing on her favourite daytime TV show, ditching textbooks for a backcombed bob along the way.

Tackling themes of gender, body image and racial segregation, Shankman’s film makes an impactful change in bringing forward the show’s 11 o’clock number, ‘I Know Where I’m Going’. Here it serves as a powerful protest anthem when Queen Latifah’s Motormouth Maybelle leads a march on TV station WZYT to demand on-air integration. Upon release, Hairspray enjoyed the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie based on a Broadway show – a record broken by Mamma Mia! (2008).

Director: Rob Marshall

Italian director Guido faces a midlife crisis in Nine, the musical based on Federico Fellini’s metafictional masterwork 8½ (1963) – a mainstay on critics’ lists and in film studies classrooms the world over. Daniel Day-Lewis stars in the film of the musical, where director Rob Marshall redeploys the fantasy framework so successful in his adaptation of Chicago (2002) by staging the musical numbers on a scaffold-heavy film-set inside Guido’s mind.

Ripe for writhing dance routines, the location is put to good use by the various women who influence Guido’s life and work, including wife Marion Cotillard, mistress Penélope Cruz and muse Nicole Kidman. Pop star Fergie takes the prize performing ‘Be Italian’, the film’s best-known number, as Saraghina – the beach-dwelling dancer from Guido’s childhood memory, who also had the standout scene in Fellini’s original.

Director: Jonathan Butterell

An outlier on the list, Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae’s joyous coming-of-age musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie was based on a BBC documentary. Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 (2011) followed out-schoolboy Jamie Campbell on his quest to create a stage persona, overcome prejudice and attend prom in drag.

Stage director Jonathan Butterell made his feature film debut with the 2021 adaptation of the musical, filmed on location in Sheffield. Newcomer Max Harwood stars alongside a gentle Sarah Lancashire and Richard E. Grant, whose drag mentor Loco Chanelle leaves a big impression with a scene richly reimagined for the film’s highpoint. ‘This Was Me’, performed by Holly Johnson, accompanies video footage of the young Loco (original on-stage Jamie, John McCrea) as he lives through the joy and sorrow of queer life in the late 20th century.

Director: Blitz Bazawule

Based on Alice Walker’s novel as well as Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film, The Color Purple was initially ill-received in 2005 before it found new life with a hit 2015 revival. Broadway producers Scott Sanders and Oprah Winfrey, who played the scene-stealing Sofia in Spielberg’s version, return for this film adaptation of the musical alongside Spielberg and his co-producer and composer Quincy Jones.

American Idol winner Fantasia is warm and tender as Celie, an African American woman in the South who survives decades of abuse and misogyny, while Danielle Brooks’ Sofia is a star-making turn. A notable addition to this third adaptation is the Oscar-nominated song ‘Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister)’, which is restored from Spielberg’s film and transformed from an intimate, hopeful moment between Celie and blues singer Shug into a triumphant celebration of happier times.

Directors: Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr

You’d be forgiven for not knowing it, but this new twist on teen comedy Mean Girls (2004) is perhaps the purest film-to-stage-to-film-musical adaptation since Hairspray. Based on the Broadway (and soon-to-be West End) show, Mean Girls is being released theatrically almost 20 years since Lindsay Lohan first felt the wrath of Rachel McAdams’ OG mean girl, Regina George.

Writer Tina Fey returns having also written the original movie and book of the musical, which follows new girl Cady as she navigates high-school social hierarchy and falls in with cruel clique The Plastics. Moana (2016) star Auliʻi Cravalho and Broadway’s Reneé Rapp run away with this adaptation as Janice and Regina respectively. They have the gift of the musical’s best songs, which are also now the film’s best sequences – ‘I’d Rather Be Me’, a defiant ode to individuality, and the vengeful banger ‘World Burn’. It’s an energetic adaptation of the Broadway show that pays respect to its cinematic origins while updating the “cautionary tale” for a new generation.

Mean Girls is in cinemas from 17 January 2024.

The Color Purple is in cinemas from 24 January.