Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the unusual Off-Broadway musical hit, is headed for your local movie theatre and record store. As first reported by Variety, the show's team has signed with New Line Pictures to turn the stage show into a movie, and Atlantic Records to record the score.
Mark Tusk of New Line confirmed that the company had reached a deal to bring Hedwig to the silver screen, though he added that some details were yet to be worked out. Hedwig creator and star John Cameron Mitchell will direct the movie. Tusk declined to confirm or deny any other aspects of the Variety story, which reported that the film was budgeted at $3.5 million. It is unclear whether the film will match the stage version of the story, which is told within the context of a concert by singer Hedwig, or whether the flick with flesh out the title transsexual's far-flung tale, which takes her from Eastern Germany to the United States. No shooting schedule has been set.
Plans for the album are more concrete. Altantic spokesperson Bobbie Gale said Mitchell, the show's composer Stephen Trask and his band Cheater will go into the studio very soon. "[Atlantic is] hoping to get [the album] out this year. Whether or not that's realistic, I don't know," she said.
Gale said that there might eventually be two Hedwig albums, the first one documenting the stage version, and a second recording of the movie soundtrack.
Variety reported that a record deal was delayed due to a conflict between Trask and Hedwig producers Peter Askin and Suzanne Brinkley. The producers reportedly wanted to sign with Danny DeVito's Jersey Shore, while Trask insisted on Atlantic. Hedwig was written by its star, Mitchell (book), and Trask (music and lyrics). Mitchell plays the title singer, an obscure and tortured German-American transsexual rock singer, who tells her darkly comic story while ostensibly performing a concert. The Angry Inch, her back-up band, is Trask's rock combo Cheater, a staple at such downtown New York clubs as CBGB's and Mercury Lounge. The musical has been playing at the Jane Street Theatre since Feb. 14.
-- By Robert Simonson
