Disney Theatrical Productions announced today that it’s working on a stage adaptation of The Princess Bride. No word yet on whether it will be a musical or a straight play, who will be involved in the creative process, or when one might expect to see Westley and Buttercup’s love story live and onstage, but the wheels are apparently turning. On the one hand, it’s always frustrating to see beloved classics get futzed with, and the trend of extant stories being turned into musicals — or plays in general — can feel like a glaring instance of creative bankruptcy. (And the idea that adaptations have a built-in audience isn’t even true! See: Big Fish. Except you can’t, because it’s closing.) That said … Princess Bride does seem to lend itself to a theatrical style. “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” is practically a song already.
