The Princess Bride is being adapted for the stage by Disney Theatrical.
According to Variety , it has yet to be decided whether the stage adaptation will be a play or a musical. But the production will not be related to a previous attempt to turn the 1987 film into a musical. That effort fell through in 2007 after a rights disagreement between composer Adam Guettel and William Goldman, who wrote the original 1973 novel and the screenplay for the film adaptation.
Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn has ties to The Princess Bride through his tenure at Castle Rock, the production company he co-founded in 1987 with Rob Reiner, Martin Shafer, Andrew Scheinman, and Glenn Padnick. Reiner named the company after the fictional Maine town that serves as the setting of several stories by Stephen King. He directed the film version of The Princess Bride and produced along with Scheinman.
Producer Thomas Schumacher will lead the stage adaptation of The Princess Bride , but so far, no timeline has been set.
“My involvement in The Princess Bride goes back to 1987 and it has always been close to my heart,” Alan Horn said . “For all those years and a few more, I’ve been friends with the brilliant Bill Goldman, and to now have a stage production of this film in development at Disney is honestly a dream come true. It couldn’t be in better hands than those of the experienced Disney Theatrical team led by Tom Schumacher.”
The Princess Bride starred Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin , Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn, and Andre the Giant. In the frame story, Peter Falk played the grandfather reading the book version of The Princess Bride to his sick grandson (Fred Savage). While the film was a modest box office success, grossing $30.8 million on a $16 million budget, it has since become a cult classic. The American Film Institute selected The Princess Bride as number 88 on its “AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Passions” list.
