I had a bias against the recent 3D stop-motion movie Coraline. Just before seeing it I wrote a feature about the charming Brendan Fraser, who had some pretty critical things to say about the movie’s director, Henry Selick. Fraser worked with Selick on the half-animated, half-live-action 2001 box-office bomb Monkeybone and recalled that the auteur "loved working with actors, as long as they were made from Play-Doh." In fact, I found Coraline to be beautiful, nicely creepy, and all-around fantastic, although in fairness to Fraser, every actor in it is made from Play-Doh, or whatever the hell they construct these things from. Anyhoo, I’m pretty excited by the news of a forthcoming Coraline musical. The stage adaptation of the film — and Neil Gaiman’s original book — will premiere at New York’s Lucille Lortel Theatre on May 7 and feature songs by Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields fame. The latter has some previous experience with this kind of thing, having released a collection of songs inspired by the Lemony Snicket books.
Are you psyched about a Coraline musical? Is Merritt a good choice? Tell us what you think!
More from EW’s Music Mix:
The Jayhawks get back together for summer show
What’s the most heartbreaking song of all time?
Billie Joe Armstrong: The Music Mix Interview
Metallica: Can you have too many bass players?
…I am so in on this it’s not even funny. I am delighted to hear about this! I remember hearing Merritt’s songs on my Lemony Snicket and Coraline audiobooks, and loving them deeply. His clever and creepy songwriting is perfect for such an undertaking. I’d love to see this in action
I don’t think they could have come up with a better suited pairing had they spent an eternity on the subject. I know very little, though.