By Robert Simonson
17 May 2006

"Secondhand Lions," the 2003 movie starring Michael Caine and Robert Duvall as two eccentric Texas brothers, will become a new stage musical.

The New Line film is being developed by bookwriter Rupert Holmes (The Secret of Edwin Drood, Curtains, Marty), and composers Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary, New Line chairman Michael Lynne told Playbill.com. Weiner and Zachary are best known for creating the Cinderella-inspired, hour-long Twice Charmed musical performed on Disney cruise ships.

"Secondhand Lions" concerned Walter, the teenage son of a flighty, floozy mother who, before setting out in search of a husband, deposits the boy on the doorstep of his mysterious great uncles Hub and Garth. While spending the summer with the two men, he learns what the duo did with their time when they disappeared for a long while during their youth.

Tim McCanlies wrote and directed the feature.

New Line film properties led to the stage musicals Hairspray and The Wedding Singer.