Fresh off the success of his fairy tale "hit" Bedtime Stories, Adam Shankman is giving a boost to the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
The choreographer and "director" is coming on to develop and produce a long-gestating remake of Bye Bye Birdie at Columbia.
A stage favorite for the past half-century, Birdie centers on Conrad Birdie, a popular singer whose character is based loosely on Elvis Presley. He's about to be shipped off to the army, but as part of a publicity stunt, he agrees to one last encounter with a fan before he goes to war.
The 1958 musical has had several screen adaptations, including an Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke version in 1963 and a television movie starring Jason Alexander in 1995.
Columbia has been developing an updated version for a number of years, with the logline at one point re-imagining the title character as a hip-hop star. Several writers also have taken cracks at a new version of the story, with Step Up 2 the Streets director and film student wunderkind John Chu and SNL's Tina Fey attached to write at different points. (Shankman also produced Step Up 2.) No new writer has been attached in the project's current incarnation.
While, okay, fine we did enjoy the Hairspray remake, we're still not sold on Shankman's directing abilities. Maybe he should just choreograph and leave the film stuff to the experts. Case in point: Bedtime Stories...
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