We’ve been hearing rumblings of a “Hairspray” sequel for months. Just last week, director Adam Shankman confirmed that John Waters himself was writing an outline that would take Zac Efron, Queen Latifah and the rest into the late Sixties. Now, MTV has the scoop on all the insanity that could only come from the twisted “Pink Flamingos” mastermind.
“Scott and I are certainly on board,” Oscar-nominated composer/producer Marc Shaiman assured us, saying he’ll once again return with partner Scott Wittman to the musical/movie franchise they helped build from Waters’ 1988 cult film. “John Waters wrote a treatment that is so f–king hysterical!”
Shaiman, Wittman, returning director Adam Shankman and a few others recently read Waters’ outline, and his die-hard fans will be glad to know that the outrageous filmmaker is once again proudly pushing the envelope. “I don’t know how mainstream it would go if he really stuck to his ideas; it would be a real John Waters-style film,” Shaiman explained.
As for the plot, he said: “People hate Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) because she doesn’t lose weight. They ask ‘Now that you’re famous, why won’t you lose weight?’. And Link (Efron) experiments with drugs. Throughout half the movie, he has an ongoing dialogue with three pimples on his forehead.”
“Edna (John Travolta) loses weight, but sees her husband (Christopher Walken) lusting after fat women,” Shaiman laughed, citing one of the musical numbers he’s particularly eager to write. “And so, she finally breaks down and runs over to a snack table. Just within one number, she gets fat again; gaining 20 pounds at a time. [Her fat] pops out, and by the end of the song she’s completely at her old weight again.”
Shaiman, whose hilarious “Prop 8 – The Musical” is currently one of the hottest viral clips on the Internet, said another fun facet of the “Hairspray” sequel will be writing Beatles and Kinks-era tunes to depict Efron’s desire to remain hip during the British Invasion.
“Part of John Waters’ idea is that he gets caught up trying to masquerade himself as a member of the British Invasion,” Shaiman said of Efron. “And it’s wearing that mop-top Beatles hairdo that causes those pimples on his forehead!”
“The Sixties is just the most fantastic era for music, because it was so wide-ranging. I grew up then, and on the radio you’d have Frank Sinatra going into ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane, going into Peggy Lee, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones,” he marveled, hoping that the final script will keep Waters’ crazed vision intact when “Hairspray 2” hits theaters in summer 2010. “There was so many different kinds of music, all on the same radio stations. That’s what’s so great about writing for that era.”
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