Hugh Jackman Passion Project The Greatest Showman Will be Transformed into a Live Theater Event

Eve Batey August 11, 2024

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Hugh Jackman Passion Project The Greatest Showman Will be Transformed into a Live Theater Event

Hugh Jackman-led movie musical The Greatest Showman demonstrated an unexpected level of persistence following its 2017 debut, bucking lukewarm reviews to become ubiquitous through 2018, spurring plans for a sequel that were only boosted by Jackman’s Showman-song-heavy arena tour. It’s unclear if the sequel—which, like the original, would likely star the Deadpool & Wolverine frontman as an extremely soft-pedaled P.T. Barnum—is still in play, but now there’s another Showman plan afoot. The movie will be adapted into a live theater spectacle, Disney announced Friday, a staged musical that is likely Broadway-bound.

The news came at D23, a three-day event for fans of everything Disney (which includes the universes of Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and more). At a Friday panel on the entertainment monolith’s musical theater plans, after announcements of new Frozen stage show dates and a West End adaptation of the company’s animated Hercules film, “the iconic howl from the 2017 movie musical sounded across the arena,” Variety reports.

That howl, “Ladies and gents, this is the moment you’ve waited for,” kicked off a surprise rendition of “The Greatest Show,” performed by singers led by Ryan Vasquez in the Hugh Jackman role. Under a sign that reads “The Greatest Showman: The New Musical,” the cast of five teased the upcoming show, a video posted to social media reveals.

The staged adaption of the film will be produced by the Disney Theatrical division, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Typically, stage shows produced by that division end up on Broadway: past productions include the currently running Aladdin and The Lion King adaptations, as well as 2018’s Frozen show.

Dates or a destination for the Showman show were not revealed on Friday, but Page Six appears to have a clue, reporting Saturday that the production will land first in the southwest England town of Bristol “in early 2026” and then will “play the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London.”

The show’s director will reportedly be director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, who helmed the stage version of Aladdin, the musical film The Prom, and many others. Jackman, who has abundant Broadway cred of his own, does not appear to be involved with the production thus far—but then again, we never expected him to come back as Wolverine, either.