adaptations

Mel Brooks Talks Blazing Saddles Musical, Thanks Django Unchained

PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 14: Actor/Director/Writer Mel Brooks speaks onstage during the PBS panel for 'AMERICAN MASTERS
PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 14: Actor/Director/Writer Mel Brooks speaks onstage during the PBS panel for ‘AMERICAN MASTERS “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise” ’ of the 2013 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa on January 14, 2013 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) Photo: Frederick M. Brown/2013 Getty Images

Mel Brooks has been batting around the idea of turning Blazing Saddles into a musical — following The Producers and Young Frankenstein — since at least 2008. Now, thanks to Quentin Tarantino, Brooks is talking it up again: “A lot of it is musical already,” the 86-year-old director says. “It has a rather fanciful and fantastic tone to it. And now that Django Unchained has literally used the N-word, I think I’m in the clear. I don’t look so bad. He really used that word a lot.” Who showed Brooks the Django/Blazing mash-up?

Mel Brooks Talks Blazing Saddles Musical