I love James Bond. I love musicals. That does not mean the two should be smashed together, but no one ever really cares about what I love. Merry Saltzman, the daughter of former Bond producer Harry Saltzman, has acquired the rights for a James Bond stage adaptation and is looking to put up the show on Broadway or in Las Vegas in the 2017-18 season. So, James Bond: The Musical, as it is tentatively titled, is coming.
The show will feature a new story, “several Bond villains, plus some new ones”, and “our own Bond girl”, according to Saltzman. No casting has been announced yet. The book will be written by novelist Dave Clarke (Keep Hannah Waiting, who also does not even have a Wikipedia page) and music and lyrics by country composer Jay Henry Weisz (same applies to him). So, we have two people who have not worked on stage material before crafting a James Bond musical. If the idea itself sounded bad enough to you, this probably does not boost your confidence.
The closest comparison I can draw to this was the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The show was a creative disaster, causing the director to be replaced and nearly the whole show to be rewritten while in previews. It managed to make some money at the box office initially, despite it being critically ravaged, but eventually fizzled out and closed up shop in January of 2014. That show at least had acrobatic spectacle people could enjoy. I don’t know what James Bond: The Musical could put on the stage to be exciting. How would you do a car chase with the Aston Martin? I don’t know. We’ll see how this all plays out.
Original report from Playbill.
