Alex Timbers to Helm Musical Film for Disney

Looks like the folks over at Disney were impressed with Alex Timbers recent Broadway prequel to the classic tale of Peter Pan. Deadline reports that 'Peter and the Starcatcher' Tony-Award winning director Alex Timbers has signed on to helm an untitled musical film for Disney, described as "a contemporary adaptation of a Shakespeare play."

Written by Amy Talkington, the project will be produced by Offspring Entertainment's Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot, with Jon Chu and Offspring's Matt Smith executive producing. Timbers will also join Talkington on further revisions to the script. According to the report, the musical was inspired by the friendship between Talkington and Smith who collaborated on MGM's recent reboot of Valley Girl.

Explained Timbers, "The script stretches the boundaries of the movie musical and demands the sort of surprising visuals and raucous spectacle I love to create in my own stage musicals."

The two-time Tony nominee's Broadway credits include the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson for which he won a Drama Desk Award for Best Book of a Musical, a Tony nomination for his book, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction.

His other credits include The Language of Trees for the Roundabout Theatre Company, Beyond Therapy for Williamstown Theatre Festival and Bay Street Theater, the Off-Broadway hit Boozy, for which he also served as playwright, and underground at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music and internationally with David Dorfman Dance.

The director is currently working on his original musical adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost and is developing a feature adaptation of Dale Basye's young adult novel Heck: Where The Bad Kids Go for MGM.

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