Will CODA Be the First Best Picture to Become a Broadway Musical?
This year's Best Picture winner, CODA, might be going from the Oscars to Broadway. Ahead of the film's triumph at the 2022 Academy Awards, a stage musical version was revealed to be in the works, as reported by The New York Times. The idea was first conceived in 2014 with the release of La Famille Bélier, the French film that CODA is based on. The adaptation is now specifically tied to AppleTV+'s Oscar-winning remake and is being developed at the Deaf West Theatre, which is based in Los Angeles but has transferred a number of shows to New York City's iconic theater district.
The ultimate destiny of the CODA musical is unknown—it is said to be at least two years away from happening anyway—yet the movie's success and increased awareness and certain popularity, as proven by the Oscars, make the show's prospects so much brighter. Even though CODA itself is not a traditional musical, its focus on a young singer dreaming of attending a prestigious music academy should easily translate to the medium of a Broadway musical. And the Deaf West Theatre, best known for its Tony Award-nominated revival of the musical Spring Awakening starring CODA actors Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant, is the perfect venue to make it happen.
If CODA does wind up on Broadway, would it be the first Best Picture winner to spawn a musical version? Not quite. CODA can claim a few Oscars firsts, such as being the first Best Picture to have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and being the first movie exclusive to a streaming service to win the top Academy Award. But there have actually been a few precedents when it comes to Best Picture winners winding up on the Broadway stage following their Oscar glory. Still, many of these previous examples could also be excluded from this conversation on technicalities.
For instance, the star-studded drama Grand Hotel, which was named Best Picture at the Oscars in 1932, became a Tony Award-winning Broadway show in 1989. However, it could be argued that it's based more on the 1929 novel of the same name and a previous non-musical stage adaptation than on the movie. Similarly, Broadway musicals with ties to the Best Picture winners How Green Was My Valley and Gigi can be traced back to the literary source material. The 1970 Tony Award-winning musical Applause is similar, though it was primarily based on 1950's Best Picture, All About Eve, rather than on the original short story. At one point, one of the film's stars, Anne Baxter, even took the lead role in the stage adaptation.
Of course, CODA is itself an adapted work, so it's in the same boat as other musicals based on movies based on books. There have, however, been three Broadway musicals adapted from films with original screenplays. The musical An American in Paris, which debuted in France in 2014 before landing on Broadway, is entirely inspired by the 1951 Best Picture of the same name. Promises, Promises, a 1968 Broadway show, is based on the 1960 Best Picture The Apartment. And in 2014, Rocky the Musical made its Broadway debut based on the 1976 Best Picture written by and starring Sylvester Stallone.
Some other Best Picture winners come awfully close to being in this circle of Broadway spawns. Scarlett, a 1970 musical based on Gone With the Wind, debuted in London and was intended to move to Broadway, but that transfer was canceled. And a musical based on the novel Rebecca, which was adapted into the Best Picture-winner of the same name, premiered in Vienna in 2006 before nearly making its way to Broadway. Also, attempts were made in 1951 and 1967 to turn the 1942 classic Casablanca into a Broadway musical, both times unsuccessfully. Considering the small number of Best Picture winners that have spawned musicals, let alone made it to Broadway, the CODA adaptation's success there would be noteworthy.