DVDizzy Forum

tsom wrote:I heard from a good source that Disney is looking to adapt Once On This Island as a movie musical, so these TLM rumors (Puerto Rico, Zendaya, etc) may actually be for Once On This Island. Don't quote me, but after speaking to my source, it all makes sense.

UmbrellaFish wrote:Interesting that Disney is going in on adaptations of non-Disney affiliated Broadway musicals. I think this is only their third after Into the Woods, and if you count Babes in Toyland which was based on an operetta. Fourth if you want to count Disney bringing the stage production of Hamilton into the brand.

Sotiris wrote:Looks like someone was right on the money. Has that source of yours told you anything else tsom?

tsom wrote:I heard from a good source that Disney is looking to adapt Once On This Island as a movie musical, so these TLM rumors (Puerto Rico, Zendaya, etc) may actually be for Once On This Island. Don't quote me, but after speaking to my source, it all makes sense.

Source: viewtopic.php?p=711308#p711308

Sotiris wrote:

UmbrellaFish wrote:Interesting that Disney is going in on adaptations of non-Disney affiliated Broadway musicals. I think this is only their third after Into the Woods, and if you count Babes in Toyland which was based on an operetta. Fourth if you want to count Disney bringing the stage production of Hamilton into the brand.

Disney has adapted more non-Disney stage musicals than that. There's Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, South Pacific, Annie, The Music Man, and Once Upon a Mattress.

“I thought I was going to be a dancer,” says Bioh, who has written for the “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” and “Tiny Beautiful Things,” and will next pen the Disney+ live-action film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Once on This Island.” “You don’t really know where your story is leading you.”

Bioh writes stories that center on women, specifically Black immigrant women, and describes her writing style as character-driven narratives grounded in comedic elements. “My center of gravity is comedy,” Bioh says. “It’s important to me that people can be entertained by my work … to feel like they’ve connected with a character they would have never encountered before, have an empathy for them rather than [the] implicit bias they had going into the story.”

Q: You are also helming Once On This Island with Disney. What can you share about that process?

Jocelyn Bioh: I can say that the process has been really amazing. I’ve spoken to LaChanze who was in the original production who produced Jaja’s and Kecia Lewis who was also in the original and in Goddess now [she currently can be seen in Hell’s Kitchen on Broadway] about some of the changes and things that I've made to the script. I'm really hopeful it will be on a screen sometime soon and I'm really excited about this kind of fresh update to a story that is so near and dear to so many people.