WATER FOR ELEPHANTS Coming to Broadway? Producers Buy Rights to Create Stage Musical

According to the Hollywood Reporter, producers Peter Schneider and Elisabetta di Mambro have acquired the rights to to create a stage version of Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. Schneider told THR: "I have loved Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants since it was first published and was captivated by its theatricality. It is so dramatic - a woman who is trapped in a relationship for all the wrong reasons meets and falls in love with a man for all the right reasons. Throw in an elephant as a matchmaker and you have the potential for a show of great imagination and emotional depth."

Di Mambro continued: "We are just starting the creative process, beginning to talk with composers, writers, and directors who can help transform this vibrant world onto the musical stage. Aware of the exciting challenge ahead of us, we are grateful that Sara Gruen has given us the rights to bring her beloved story and characters to life as a global musical."

Gruen told THR: "I am beyond thrilled to be involved in a creative process that is entirely new to me, especially with such wonderfully talented people at the helm to reimagine my work for the stage. When I wrote the book, I hoped people would think about the way we treat those who are dependent on us - animals, the elderly, the debilitated, as well as the power of love in all its forms, and it's going to be amazing to see this message delivered in such an exciting medium."

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Water for Elephants is a 2006 novel by Sara Gruen. The 2011 film was directed by Francis Lawrence, with a screenplay by Richard LaGravenese. It starred Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz. The story is told as a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a 93-year-old man who lives in a nursing home. As the memories begin, Jacob is a 23-year-old Polish American preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the devastating news that his parents have been involved in a car accident. Jacob's father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. When Jacob learns that his parents have been killed in the car crash and their home has been mortgaged to pay for his tuition and is not to become his, he has a breakdown and leaves his Ivy League school just short of graduation. In the dark of night, he jumps on a train, a Circus train belonging to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.