Sara Bareilles Not Ruling Out A 'Waitress' Musical Movie In The Future
Image Source: Access Hollywood
Popular singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, best known for hit songs such as Love Song and Gonna Get Over You, contributed her musical skills to help compose songs for a Broadway musical adaptation of the sleeper hit indie film, Waitress (2007), which premiered on Broadway in 2015. Bareilles not only had the chance to perform the female lead (portrayed in the film by Keri Russell) on Broadway in 2021, but also had her live performance filmed for a future public release. The filmed performance of the musical premiered in a limited theatrical release through Fathom Events this past December. The original film was written by the late actress, Adrienne Shelley, about a pregnant waitress named Jenna who is trapped in an abusive marriage in a small midwestern town and sees a pie contest and its grand prize as her way out of her unhappy predicament.
Bareilles, who got to share her performance with her now-fiance, was very excited about the filming of the award-winning Broadway show. She expressed in an interview in December that she is happy that she can share the musical with audiences such as her parents, who have been unable to see the musical live on Broadway, and embraces the trend of the theater industry doing more live captures. Some other recent live captured stage performances that have seen public releases include an adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away (2022).
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“They’re not really meant to take the place of coming to see theater. I always say this, but I do think that what happens inside those four walls is meant to happen in those four walls and is so precious and so magical and should still be pursued with all your might. But this is a beautiful proxy for that, to get to have access and to sort of see our director’s original vision and to come in so close to these performances and to see this story told in this way with these people — it’s part of the beauty and the beast of Broadway. Is that it’s finite, it’s ephemeral, it doesn’t last forever. And so in some small way, we get to feel like a piece of it might reach more people because of that, so that part’s really beautiful.”
During the interview, Bareilles was asked whether or not there might be a musical film adaptation of the musical sometime in the future. Bareilles stated that she did not know whether that might happen, although she stated that she would likely “pass the baton” to somebody else for the development of a musical film adaptation and, now that her goal of getting the filmed live performance into theaters has been fulfilled, she is not ready for anything more right now. Still, Bareilles admits she would like to see it happen. There have been several examples of movies in recent years going from an original film to a Broadway musical and returning to film as a musical, such as Hairspray (2007) and Mean Girls (2024).
“I always say, ‘Never say never.’ There might be a musical movie in the future somewhere. I don’t have any plans for that at the moment, there’s no discussion of that at the moment. I would happily pass the baton to someone else. I think I’m hanging up my apron, but yes, it could be cool to see it reinvented. But I think this was such a heavy lift, we worked really hard on this, so I’m not ready for that right now.”
Although the live-performance film is no longer in theaters, it can be rented and/or purchased through several digital media platforms such as iTunes, Microsoft Movies, Prime Video, etc.
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