One of the greatest musicals of the past half century is Little Shop of Horrors. (No seriously, it is. Don’t even argue with me). The Off-Broadway hit show was originally composed by the songwriting duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who would later compose the scores to The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, andAladdin for Disney, and essentially saving the Disney musical.
Little Shop was based on the low-budget 1960 Roger Corman B-movie movie about an alien carnivorous plant, and the music was done in the style of early 1960s rock and roll and Motown. It was made into an amazing movie in 1986 directed by Frank Oz, which went on to become a cult classic, but underperformed theatrically upon initial release.
Well, it appears that Little Shop of Horrors is getting another chance at movie success. According to a report over at Deadline, the CW network’s comic book adaptation guru Greg Berlanti, the man responsible for giving us Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and the upcoming Archie Comics-based Riverdale, will be at the helm.
Warner Bros is moving forward with a new incarnation of the Off-Broadway play, with Berlanti currently set to direct and Matthew Robinson writing the script. This one will still be a musical, a “fresh version of the 30-year old Frank Oz-directed film.” Berlanti was set to write and direct a film version of DC’s Booster Gold, but it seems this could delay that project.
The original film had an incredible cast that will be hard to replicate, including Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, Jim Belushi, Bill Murray, Christopher Guest, and Motown hit-maker Levi Stubbs as the sadistic man eating plant, Audrey II. Basically, Berlanti and company have their work cut out for them finding a cast as amazing as that one was.
Who would you like to see in a new version of Little Shop of Horrors? Let us know down below in the comments.
Image: Warner Brothers
