Ryan Murphy has unpacked a jaw-dropping, star-studded slate of excitement with his new group of Netflix shows as part of his mega-deal with the streamer. In an interview with Time, Murphy revealed that in addition to an adaptation of the Broadway musical The Prom starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, he will adapt the classic musical A Chorus Line into a 10-part miniseries.
He's also focused on writing in quarantine, specifically working on his limited series take on A Chorus Line. "I'm just in the beginning phases of it, but it's a really high concept way into it," he teases. "But everybody in the world wants to be in that thing. It's so funny how many people grew up with such a love and nostalgia of A Chorus Line as I did."
Ryan Murphy wrote:It was my favorite musical growing up. And I think the movie version, everybody kind of agrees that it was disappointing at best. And Michael Bennett, who’s always been somebody that I was obsessed with from a very early age, and the thing that I loved about Michael Bennett was he was able to be who he was, and was a fighter and scrappy and took no prisoners. And so this 10-part miniseries will be a tribute really to him and my love of him. And also, everybody involved in it.
I’ve just now putting the final touches on all the deal points, but I hope to be able to start writing it pretty soon because I’ve never had a piece of material where more actors have come up to me and said, “I really want to be in this. I really want to be in this.” I think there’s an excitement for that music that we all grew up with and I’m excited to hopefully be able to start doing it soon.
Q: Did you say you are doing a new film version of A Chorus Line? The original movie was not a critical or commercial hit.
Ryan Murphy: Yeah. We’re trying a different approach with that, which we’re trying to do A Chorus Line as a limited series for Netflix. My favorite Broadway director of all time, producer, whatever, is Michael Bennett. So, it’s going to be A Chorus Line with all that wonderful music, but also the idea of how did he make A Chorus Line? And the thing that I was always very fascinated by, he did it for the love of the craft, and he took out a little office in Times Square and he took gypsies into those rooms and said tell me about your lives, and from those interview sessions came the music, and so I got the rights to all of those interviews. I have all of those tapes. I have all of that material about how was “What I Did For Love,” what is that about? How was “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three?” So that’s a very interesting process that I’m going to start working on next year. I haven’t started that one yet but you know, I want to keep doing it.
