My prediction: pain.
Tony winner Thomas Meehan went through his DVD collection the other day, looking for a new musical. “Annie? No. Young Frankenstein? Maybe. Wait, no, we already did that. The Producers? SH*T.” Then, he got to Rocky. Rocky is about a brain damaged debt collector who falls in love and finds out he’s great at championship boxing because a combination of ignorance and pride keep him from falling down. So of course that sounds like the perfect musical!
“It was made to be a musical,” Meehan said. It’s got all the elements.”
“Sylvester Stallone won’t be in it, but he’s given us his blessing,” Meehan said. “He and I sat and worked it out together. It’s really, on some level, autobiographical. He was an actor nobody cared about. The whole thing is an analogy of his own life.”
You know what I always thought would make “Gonna Fly Now” more inspirational? A crowd of people fake smiling and making jazz hands at the celing. I saw Mary Poppins at the Kennedy Center and I thought that was a pretty great adaptation, so I’m guessing punching frozen meats and giving robot sidekicks to your girlfriend’s wacky brother to show how rich you’ve gotten will make equally great topics for songs. The musical will be based on the first Rocky (known as “Rocky 1”), and sadly not Rocky III, which has all the semi-nude beach running and dialogue about “colored fighters” we’ve come to expect from Broadway.
Hopefully this song will be included in the production:
[h/t OTB]
