Trey Parker and Matt Stone may be more well-known for their work on South Park, but the duo have dipped their hands in other movie projects in the past. Orgazmo, Baseketball and Team America are a few such examples, but they’re also experiencing a hit on Broadway thanks to their musical, The Book of Mormon. And now, they’re planning on taking that topical material from stage to screen.
Eventually.
Badass Digest spoke to the pair at a Book of Mormon show in Los Angeles, asking them about the future of a movie based on the show, to which Parker explained that as easy as it was for him to imagine it as a film, he’d rather stick to Broadway for now:
When we first started working on it seven years ago we kind of toyed with the idea of it being a Broadway show or being a movie and obviously since Matt and I knew how to make a movie we were just like well let’s make a movie ’cause we can do that pretty quickly, but we stuck with it and after we saw our first few workshops with an audience, we were like nah, this would be cool as a stage thing. As we were doing scenes of course, I was always kind of visualizing as a movie ’cause that’s just what I knew.Once we made the decision to go to the theater, we made a bunch of decisions that were really best for the theater version of it. It would really take a rethinking. We wouldn’t want to just do this on film. We’d have to really rethink it. But I think we could redo it.
So I don’t think it would be a really difficult thing, but it would also have to be a pretty different animal when we’re done with it. We don’t talk about it too much right now or think about it, but it’s very possible one day. That’s all I know.
So a very non-committal answer then. What the two did agree on however, was who would direct it, when that time eventually arrived, as it looks like they aren’t too keen on anyone else helming it:
No, I don’t think anyone else would direct it. The cinematic vision is pretty strong. I mean, I think we want to do a movie of it someday but, right now, we’re just trying to get our head around this version.
Sounds decent. Whether it’s Stone or Parker that directs, they’ve proven themselves to be solid creators behind a camera, and after multiple seasons of calling the shots on South Park, they’re more than up to the task. Plus, it’ll give audiences more time to go see a play that has already garnered itself 9 Tony Awards.
Last Updated: September 13, 2012
