Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Matt Bomer and the entire Broadway cast of last year’s The Boys in the Band will reunite, along with director Joe Mantello, for a Netflix film adaptation, producer Ryan Murphy announced today.
Also reprising their roles from the star-packed production are Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesus, Tuc Watkins, Michael Benjamin Washington and Brian Hutchison.
“The Broadway cast of Boys was so important to me,” Murphy wrote in an Instagram post, “and as equally groundbreaking as Mart Crowley’s seminal work. Everyone in the cast was out and proud…and feeling so blessed to mark the 50th anniversary of Mart’s landmark play.”
Murphy will be produce the film with David Stone and Ned Martel, with a debut on Netflix in 2020.
The news comes quickly after Murphy’s announcement that he is planning a Netflix adaptation of the current Broadway musical The Prom. Both are part of Murphy’s $300 million Netflix deal.
Crowley’s classic gay drama debuted Off Broadway in 1968, and had its first Broadway staging with the 2018 production at the Booth Theatre. The Tony Awards committee recently ruled that the 50th-anniversary production will be eligible in the Best Revival category.
The 15-week limited engagement closed on Aug. 11, 2018, following a record-breaking run at the Booth. The production recouped its $3.5 million investment in the 11th week of its run, and in its final week smashed the Booth’s house record, taking a weekly gross of $1,152,649 (the theater’s previous record holder was 2015’s The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper, with $1,113,192).
For more about the Broadway production, read Deadline’s interview with Mantello here. The director’s staging of Hilary and Clinton, starring Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow, opens at Broadway’s Golden Theatre tomorrow. Next season, Mantello will direct Metcalf and Eddie Izzard in a Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, produced by Scott Rudin.
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