13 Going on 30, the best movie of all time, is going to become a Broadway musical.
Following in the footsteps of Legally Blonde, Amélie and Bring it On, the 2004 romantic comedy 13 Going on 30 is getting a stage adaptation — though sadly without its leads Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo.
13 Going on 30 was a sweet little movie about a girl named Jenna who woke up in the body of her 30-year-old self to find that she had a perfect life — except for the absence of her childhood crush, whom she then proceeded to track down. A potentially icky idea, but director Gary Winick somehow managed to tread the fine line of keeping the love story innocent rather than creepy.
In a way, 30 might be viewed as the female reboot of Big, except no one used that term back then so they avoided the pointless outcry.
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Andy Fickman, who last worked on the stage adaptation of Heathers, will be directing the Broadway run of 13 Going on 30, with music by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner. Zachary and Weiner are coincidentally also doing music for the 17 Again stageplay — a story very much like 30, except its main character ages down rather than up.
SlashFilm notes that while the music for the play will be original, the movie actually uses some pretty iconic musical numbers that compliment the story — not only is there a literal Michael Jackson dance number (with the wonderful Andy Serkis), but ’80s hits like Rick Springfield’s “Jesse’s Girl” and “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar are used to ground Jenna in either the past or the present, and to give her a frame of reference in a time she otherwise doesn’t understand. Let’s hope they get the rights to at least some of those songs!
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