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Conceivable!: 'The Princess Bride' is headed to Broadway | News | LIVING LIFE FEARLESS
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Conceivable!: ‘The Princess Bride’ is headed to Broadway

Such a project had been in the works for several years, with Goldman in particular pushing the notion of it on Broadway

Just five months after the death of William Goldman, who wrote both the movie and the novel on which it was based, The Princess Bride is getting a Broadway musical adaptation.

According to Deadline, Disney Theatrical is in the “early stages” of developing such a project. The team in place to write the show consists of composer and lyricist David Yazbek and book writers Bob Martin and Rick Elice. Disney Theatrical is the Walt Disney Company’s theatrical arm, which is behind Broadway adaptations of The Lion King, Aladdin, Frozen, and other popular Disney films. The Princess Bride was not a Disney film but the company acquired its rights some time ago. 

Such a project had been in the works for several years, with Goldman in particular pushing the notion of The Princess Bride on Broadway. A long list of prominent writers, including  Marc Shaiman, Randy Newman and even John Mayer, have taken a crack at writing a Princess Bride musical in the past, without it ever moving forward. Which is strange, considering what a natural fit the material is for the stage.

The beloved 1987 film, which was directed by Rob Reiner, celebrated cliches of the romantic fantasy adventure genre, while also mocking them. The film starred Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Billy Crystal, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, and Andre The Giant, as the story of an adventurer named Westley, a princess named Buttercup, and a vengeance-minded fencer named Inigo Montoya, is relayed by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his grandson (Fred Savage).

The film, for all of its other virtues, spawned a half-dozen memorable catchphrases. It’s not hard to imagine some of those catchphrases, like “Inconceivable,” “Have fun storming the castle,” “as you wish,” and “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die,” eventually becoming musical numbers. The unlikely off-screen friendship between Billy Crystal and wrestling legend Andre The Giant was later fictionalized in the 1998 film My Giant, in which Crystal co-starred with then-NBA big man Gheorge Muresan.

Goldman’s novel was published in 1973, and is remembered as one of the noted writer’s greatest works, along with his screenplay for All The President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 

Director Reiner’s tweet, remembering William Goldman after his death at the age of 87 in November of 2018, was one of the more memorable in the history of the platform:

It’s unknown when the Princesss Bride musical might make its debut.

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