Once upon a time, the biggest plays and musicals that graced Broadway made their way to the movie theater. From The Music Man and Wicked to A Streetcar Named Desire and Hamlet, the idea was to go from stage to screen.
But recently, that trend has reversed, with the latest film-turned-Broadway show based on Paranormal Activity, the 2007 found-footage scary movie that spawned 6 sequels. Even before its Broadway debut, it was a hit across the country as well as in London's West End. Titled Paranormal Activity — A New Story, the play is independent of the films and follows a couple moving from Chicago to London to escape their past. Of course, there is no running from the past, as they will soon find out in haunting ways.
“Paranormal Activity changed the horror landscape,” said Josh Silverman, President, Global Products & Experiences, Paramount, in an interview on Deadline. “Bringing the franchise to Broadway allows us to continue expanding that world in a bold and immersive way. By combining the franchise’s signature suspense with the power of live theater, this production delivers an unforgettable live experience for the audience.”
Jason Blum, one of the producers of the original Paranormal Activity, is also a producer on the play.
Big musicals and plays are getting a boost with nostalgia. But as movie favorites make the leap from screen to stage, producers, writers, and audiences must adjust their expectations. Big spectacle from 1980s films doesn’t translate seamlessly to a theater setting, but they can still be entertaining and showcase talent within their limited stage space.
Here are 5 movies that became hit Broadway shows and why audiences connected with them.
The Producers
Mel Brooks’ The Producers wasn’t a hit at first. According to Brooks, about 50 people showed up at the 1,000-seat Philadelphia movie palace in 1967, and it took some convincing to get the theater owner to keep it running. They did, and within a few weeks, Brooks would drive past the theater where long lines snaked around the block. Brooks would win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for The Producers and would go on to write and direct several comedies that have stood the test of time. The film also made Gene Wilder a comedic star.
The Producers follows a stage-play producer and an accountant who discover they could make more money by creating a play that bombs rather than succeeds. Trying to make a sure-fire flop, they go on a journey to find the worst play, a bad director, and make a lot of money.
Over 30 years later, Brooks turned his hit movie into a massive musical, expanding the story to include catchy songs and dance numbers, while still maintaining the characters and story that made the original a success.
Four years later, in 2005, Brooks took his two Broadway stars (Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) and turned the musical back into a movie.
Beetlejuice
In 1988, fresh off his success with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Tim Burton set his sights on a story about a dead couple who want their house back and the freaky ghost who pushes his way into their life. Betelgeuse’s (Michael Keaton) larger-than-death personality became a fan favorite that led to a cartoon in the 1990s and then a much-anticipated sequel in 2024.
Beetlejuice the Musical premiered in Washington, D.C. in 2018 before heading to Broadway in 2019. The musical follows the same story as the film, only it offers more comedy and is self-aware — it knows exactly what it is and invites the audience to embrace the absurdity of a musical based on the bio-exorcist.
Add in several musical numbers, and Beetlejuice the Musical changes the emotional tone from its original intent and goes big in ways only Broadway can.
Alex Brightman, the original star of the Broadway show, said in a New York Theatre Guide interview, “People are coming to see the zaniness, the circus and the vaudeville and the dark comedy that is Beetlejuice…But what I don’t think you get in the movie until the dead end is the heart. We follow the story of Lydia, who has just lost her mother, and that’s a very real topic that we really explore and dive into in this musical. I think people will be surprised that they’re crying by the end. There are moments that are really quite touching.”
Mrs. Doubtfire
Mrs. Doubtfire checked all the boxes when it arrived in theaters on Thanksgiving 1993. It starred Robin Williams, who stole the show in Aladdin the year before, was a broad family comedy, and it had a lot of heart. On a $25 million budget, it made almost $450 million worldwide. If you grew up in the 1990s, the chances you had Mrs. Doubtfire on VHS were high.
Just like Beetlejuice and The Producers, it also had the key components to make it into a bona fide Broadway musical hit. Big characters, compelling story, and lots of fun.
In 2019, based on a book by Harvey Fierstein (who was in the original movie) and music by Alan Menken (who wrote the music for a bunch of Disney favorites), Mrs. Doubtfire debuted in Seattle before finding its way to Broadway two years later.
The musical resonated with audiences for the same reason the original movie did: it’s about love and family.
Back to the Future
I couldn’t even fathom how they would turn one of my favorite films into a Broadway musical. The scale was big, the characters varied… how would they create a lightning strike as a DeLorean speeds 88 miles per hour to return Marty home? But when my dad (who considers Back to the Future and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as his favorite movies) and I sat down in the Detroit Opera House, we were immediately taken to Hill Valley and appreciated how they rolled sets in and out seamlessly and created incredible song and dance numbers to tell Marty’s tale.
Back to the Future, released in 1985, was a smash hit, providing plenty of quotable dialogue, a couple of sequels, and a family film (ya know, the kind that involves a mom falling in love with her son 12 years before he’s born) that became an instant rewatchable movie. The film follows Marty (Michael J. Fox) as he accidentally travels back to 1955 and disrupts his parents falling in love. With his existence in the balance, Marty must find a way to make his parents fall in love and return to 1985.
The musical is exactly the same. The main difference is making the big set pieces a little smaller — for instance, antagonist Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) doesn’t chase a skateboarding Marty through the town square until he crashes into a manure truck, but rather this becomes a song and dance routine in the school’s cafeteria. And just like Beetlejuice the Musical, Back to the Future is very self-aware and unafraid to wink at the audience a few times.
Mean Girls
Tina Fey was a star on Saturday Night Live for both her writing and her performances, and showed she was also a talented screenwriter with Mean Girls, a high school tale about a new girl who finds her way into the popular girl clique. Based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, which examined the lives of adolescent girls, Fey adapted the nonfiction book into an instant classic with quotable lines and unforgettable performances.
Its success led to a Broadway run in 2018, with the musical adapting many iconic scenes and lines from the original movie while creating catchy music, thanks to Fey, who wrote the musical’s book, helping preserve the wit and tone that fans loved while still trying to make “fetch” happen. 14 years after the film’s premiere, the musical updated some of its themes and tone to better reflect teenage life in 2018, showing that an evolved version of Mean Girls could meet the latest generation where they were.
Mean Girls the musical was adapted back into a movie in 2024.
The volume of movies being turned into musicals and Broadway plays reflects two trends: nostalgia sells, and entertainment loves IP, which offers a potentially better return on investment due to a built-in audience. Some may not be so enthusiastic, but Hollywood’s biggest stories are finding new life on stage. It’s helping drive audiences to the theaters for an experience they can’t have by finding a movie and streaming it on their phone. Paranormal Activity coming to Broadway continues to prove that even in an era dominated by streaming, live theater can still transform familiar stories into unforgettable experiences.