Jackman & Paice Sought for Bway-Bound 'Gone with the Wind'

A new musical based on Margaret Mitchell's classic Civil War-set epic Gone with the Wind may be blowing into the West End and/or Broadway, according to Fox News.

According to the article, "a group of producers have secured the rights from the Mitchell estate and are proceeding toward a 2008 production."  Although Mitchell's book has attained enduring fame due to its 1939 film adaptation with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, the new musical would follow the novel more closely than the movie.  The musical would similarly be told through the eyes of the slaves at Tara, the Georgia plantation in which heroine Scarlett O'Hara makes her home.

The producers are reportedly interested in Tony Award-winner Hugh Jackman (The Boy from Oz) for the role of Rhett Butler and Jill Paice (Curtains, The Woman in White) as Scarlett, his equally headstrong love interest.  According to a production insider, the new musical will turn Rhett into "more of a darker, more complicated character" than in the film.  No casting has been announced for the show, which would premiere in London before moving to Broadway.

A previous musicalization of Gone with the Wind featured a score by Harold Rome.  It was produced in Japan (with the title Scarlett), and later in London and Los Angeles.

Photo of Hugh Jackman by Linda Lenzi