Given the rise of live TV musicals like The Sound of Music, The Wiz, and Grease, you would be well within your rights to assume that tonight’s Fox’s TV version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show would be live. But it is not live. In fact, it was never going to be. “We never had any intention of doing it live — and I say we, because Kenny Ortega is the director,” executive producer Lou Adler told Deadline. “We really wanted to make a film, and especially with the choreography that Kenny, because of his background, has done. It’s bigger and brighter and he wanted to be able to take the camera down to the ankle and take it to different positions on the choreography that would have been hard to capture live.” The production still replicates the experience of going to a midnight Rocky Horror show with a (not live) audience that watches the actors in the movie, but the producers never wanted to take the extra step to spontaneity. “I don’t think we would have done it if they asked us to do live,” Adler added. “Pretty sure we wouldn’t have, but they never asked actually.” Hey, if you’re watching at home, you can still throw toast at the screen yourself.
