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Following a performance of THE BOOK OF MORMON's national tour in Los Angeles over the weekend, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the possibility of making a feature film based on the nine-time Tony Award-winning play. Parker and Stone created and wrote THE BOOK OF MORMON with Robert Lopez (Avenue Q).
In the past, the twosome have expressed an interest in bringing the musical to the big screen, but as of yet had not made any "firm commitments." Commented Parker, "We don't have any [movie plans]. You know, when we first started working on it seven years ago, we kind of toyed with the idea of it being a Broadway show, or being a movie. Obviously, since Matt and I knew how to make a movie, we were like, well let's just make a movie because we can do that pretty quickly, but we stuck with it and after we saw our first real workshops with an audience, we were like, 'Let's just make this a stage thing.'"
Added Parker, "As we were doing scenes, of course I was just always kind of visualizing it as a movie just because that's what I do, so I don't think it would be a really difficult thing [to translate it to film], but ... it would be a pretty different animal when we were done with it. ... We don't talk about it too much right now or think about it, but it's very possible."
Stone explained that a movie version of the hit show would have "significant differences" from the theater version, "Once we made the decision to definitely go to theater, we made a lot of decisions that really were best for the theater, so that's why it would really take a rethinking. … We wouldn't want to just do this on film, we would have to really re-think it."
When asked who they envision to take on the lead roles in a film version, Parker quipped, "Justin Bieber as Elder Price."
THE BOOK OF MORMON is currently on a nationwide tour, and will run in Los Angeles through November 25.
THE BOOK OF MORMON features book, music and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award-winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series, "South Park." Tony Award-winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy, Avenue Q. The world premiere musical is choreographed by three-time Tony Award-nomineeCasey Nicholaw Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone and directed by Nicholaw and Parker.
Photo Credit: Walter McBride / Retna Ltd.
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