According to James Lapine, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE Was Almost a Movie With Jake Gyllenhaal & Meryl Streep

According to a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the world came very close to a Sunday in the Park with George feature film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep.

James Lapine, who wrote Sunday with Stephen Sondheim, spoke to the outlet ahead of the release of his book "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created 'Sunday in the Park with George."

"And I had asked Meryl Streep, and she agreed to be in it. So we had Jake and Meryl," he said. "I thought, 'Well, this will go.' It was before all these movies and streaming shows that are musicals. So I think maybe our timing was really, really bad."

The timing of the potential film coincided with Gyllenhaal's performance in the Broadway revival of the musical. He starred opposite Annaleigh Ashford in the 2017 production.

Lapine said he'd always wanted to make a film out of Sunday, starring original cast members Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin. He intended to direct it himself.

"That was my dream. I'd always wanted to make a movie. And I thought, 'Fantastic,'" Lapine said of a meeting to that effect that seemed to go well. "And as Steve and I walked out of the restaurant, he said, 'I don't want to do it' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because I want to write another show with you. And if you direct this movie, you're going to go off and direct a movie, and you're going to be gone. And I really want to write another show.' And I'm 20 years his junior year, and I felt so unbelievably grateful to him, that we didn't do it."

Lapine is still somewhat optimistic that a film adaptation of Sunday in the Park with George could go ahead at some point.

"I have to say, I'm not very good at pitching things. It's never been my forte. And actually, the script is quite exciting. It's very different than the stage piece. I think it's very cool, because it starts in the present," he said. "It doesn't start in the past. I think it's very cool. But who knows? Maybe somebody one day will make it. That would be really a delight."

Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.