I am now watching "The Assassination of Richard Nixon", and a thought just stroke me, why is not Assassins a movie?

Too me it seems like one of the easier musicals to make into a movie, mostly because of the "flashbacks" or how ever I could put it, but I think the musical has many qualities that would be greatly enhanced by a movie, such as Samuel Byck's monologue on his way to the airport, or the bar scene in the beginning and How I Saved Roosevelt.

Anyone know if there ever have been discussions about a movie version? Do you think it could work?

I personaly think that it's too theateractill as a movie.

Personally, I hope this idea never leaves this website... Of all the musicals, while if done right may make an excellent movie, I would prefer this one to stay on the stage. It's one of the shows nearest and dearest to my heart, and I would hate to see it done wrong. Better to leave it alone.

I think its too theatrical, similar to Into the Woods.

Anything can work as a movie...it just needs to be done right. An "Assassins" film would be amazing.

I think Assassins would have to be conceived completely non-realistic fashion as a film if it's going to work. Why should it have to be a mainstream film? And why should it have to be forced into a filmic realism when there are genres of film that embrace artifice? I've had some thoughts on the idea of Assassins in the past; they're on my blog.

I can almost see it working if it was done in the style of the "Cabaret" film or Rob Marshall's "Chicago" - you know, more realistic straight dramatic dialogue scenes interspersed with musical numbers in a surreal setting, I'm imagining the turn-of-the-century sideshow alley, with the surreal "other" setting and the "real" setting becoming one in the final scene with Oswald at the warehouse window.

Before you start jumping down my throat for not knowing what I'm talking about, I said "almost".

I think that with the right director, it could make a brilliant movie. The framing device of the carnival shooting gallery would work well.

The trickiest thing is the transition from the more historical assassinations to Lee Harvey Oswald, as it's also (I think) the longest sequence with the longest unbroken dialogue.

I've always thought this could work if you keep the practice of having the Troubadour (I'm sorry, whatever he's called) and Oswald played by the same person. Start this sequence with a sudden close-up shot of Young Man (Oswald) waking up and and as the first few dialogue exchanges happen, slowly slowly pan backwards in one shot until it's revealed that the young man is Oswald, everything else preceding has been a hallucination/dream/fugue state as he's been counting down to his big moment, and then the other characters are around him in the "real world" scenario of the warehouse without the surreal backdrop of the side show.

I've also thought it would be kind of cool if the final shot of the film was Oswald's POV down the rifle sight and then just as he squeezes the trigger the image morphs from a realistic JFK in the car to a sideshow shooting gallery version, and then black out, roll credits to a jangling atonal instrumental version of the opening number.

I think it'd be great as a sort of surreal independent film.

Spike Jonze or Jason Reitman would be about perfect.