Steven Antin, writer-director of the musical “Burlesque,” told Speakeasy that even though the new Blu-ray for the film is packed with some spectacular extras, there are a few things he shot that simply didn’t make the cut. “There was one number, almost like an interstitial number that when I was shooting that I wasn’t crazy about,” Antin said last week via telephone. “It was just three girls dancing on stage in between a number, and it went away. I didn’t like it when I was shooting, but I only shot it in like an hour.”
Additionally, Antin indicated that the film actually had a different closing sequence at first. “I shot an ending with Christina and Cam that I knew I didn’t like before we shot it,” he explained. “I didn’t like it on the page, and I didn’t like it when we were shooting it. We scheduled it so we went ahead and shot it, and then we ended up rewriting it and shooting a different version of it.” On the other hand, Antin said he was pleasantly surprised at how well the rest of the production went. “But the musical numbers, I just kept saying, ‘s—, when is this going to go wrong?’ We were so lucky, because every musical number was coming out spectacular – and it did.”
Antin is now staring down a long list of follow-up projects. “I have so many irons in the fire, so we’ll see what happens next,” he said. “I have a musical at Disney in development that I love that is getting rewritten. It was green-lit the same day as ‘Burlesque,’ and I had to make a choice, but now that movie is being rewritten, so it could be next. Now it’s called ‘Mash Up;’ it was called ‘The Untitled Steven Antin Marching Band Movie,’ and it might be called that again. But I have another very big musical in development that is totally different then ‘Burlesque’ that I’m really excited about.”
Antin also indicated he had a couple of small-screen projects in development. “I wrote a thriller I’m sending out there right now to get that made. Also, a TV show, a pilot, because I’ve been doing TV stuff off and on for a long time, and I’ll probably direct the pilot,” he continued. “I have a reality show with BBC America that I’m executive producer on, so there is a lot of stuff that I am doing. The big question is what am I going to do next as a director because that is an important decision for me. I don’t want to do the wrong thing, so I’m trying to be thoughtful and choosy about it. I want to make a movie that I am passionate about.”
Despite the modest domestic success of “Burlesque,” the film is racing towards $100 million in box office receipts worldwide, which Antin takes as a sign that people are still interested in musicals. “It’s hard to get any movie made today,” he observed. “I don’t generally musicals or get involved with them if they don’t have a real commercial viability, because a musical should be commercial, I think; they should appeal to mass culture. [But] people are still interested in hearing about musicals – everybody is. Every studio wants to hear about them, from the right people, I think, and about the right kind of musicals. I’m sort of the right guy to now to pitch musicals and I have been for a while because my reel reflected that, my music video reel that I had done. I obviously have a pretty good filmography with musicals I can walk the walk, and talk the talk. And I have been involved with music and choreography almost my whole life.”
“But people say that to me too, about not too many musicals being made as well, not compared to the Golden Age of Hollywood, in the 30s and 40s,” he reflected. “In the last 10, 15 years Hollywood made musicals; there was “Mamma Mia,” “Chicago,” “Nine,” and “Burlesque.” They’re making their share of musicals. But then again, fewer movies are getting made these days, unfortunately, so that’s what we are up against. But hopefully as the global economy gets better, then everything will get better.”
Source: Wall Street Journal
