Let's Hear It for the Boy

When the cast of the new film version of Hairspray appeared on Oprah earlier this year, one of the producers (either Craig Zadan or Neil Meron, I can never tell which is which) said that they (controversially, it turns out) cast John Travolta because he was, as he put it, the "king of the modern movie musical" (even though he was technically only in one actual movie musical, Grease. Saturday Night Fever, even with all that dancing, does not count).

Well, it looks like Travolta may get a run for that title by one of his own Hairspray co-stars. Zac Efron (this month's most beautiful man), who plays dreamboat Link Larkin in the new film (opening this Friday, aren't you excited?!) as well as the BMOC of Disney's High School Musical franchise, has just been cast in a new, big-screen remake of the hit 1984 movie Footloose.

Now, I know there has been way too many remakes lately, particularly of movies from my generation's own teen-age years (do we really need a new Adventures in Babysitting?), but I actually don't mind this one for the reason that they are turning it into a full-fledged musical. Sure, the original Footloose had songs and all that dancing (like the original Hairspray), but (like Saturday Night Fever), it was not really a musical.

And although Footloose was turned into a Broadway musical (awfully, by all reports), this new movie will actually not be based on that. The exact particulars are unknown at this time, but one can assume that most if not all of the songs from the original movie will return, except now they will be sung onscreen by Zac and whoever else Kenny Ortega (the Newsies and HSM director, currently in negotiations to direct) decides to cast in the roles originally played by such actors as John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Lori Singer (gee, whatever happened to her?).

Which leads me to our very first session of "Armchair Casting": who would you cast in this musical remake of Footloose? Lithgow could actually reprise his role as the Bible-thumping Reverend (he did win a Tony for the musical version of Sweet Smell of Success); if not, maybe Victor Garber could do it. And I'm sure some rising pop starlet like Hayden Panettiere could easily play the rebellious Ariel. Add your ideas in the comment section below.

And one more thing: who wants to bet that the Walkman worn by Kevin Bacon in the original poster will be replaced by the now ever-present iPod? I smell product placement ...

Click the link above to purchase the Footloose poster from Amazon.com.
Links via MostBeautifulMan.com, LaughingPlace.com, Playbill.com, MovieWeb.com and Imdb.com.