November 1, 2007 - The growing trend of adapting movies from the silver screen to the Great White Way seems to have taken root on Broadway.

With more and more productions using films as their source material, Broadway marquees are beginning to resemble a local multiplex. “Legally Blonde,” “Mary Poppins,” and “The Lion King” are all enjoying successful runs.

Newcomers for this season include two widely anticipated shows based on two very popular movies, “The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein” at the Hilton Theatre and “The Little Mermaid” at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. “Xanadu,” currently playing at the Helen Hayes Theatres, is based on the 1980 cult classic starring Olivia Newton-John, featuring music from the Electric Light Orchestra.

Chazz Palminteri adapted his one-man show, “A Bronx Tale,” currently running at the Walter Kerr Theatre, into the 1993 film of the same name directed by Robert DeNiro and set in New York City.

“A Bronx Tale” was first mounted off Broadway in 1989. In the show, Palminteri brings eighteen characters to vivid life, depicting a rough childhood on Bronx streets populated by a cast of friends and enemies.

It’s also a two-way street with many feature-length films finding their inspiration in theatrical productions. A number of current hits have already been transferred to film with versions of “Chicago,” “Rent,” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” hitting the big screen in recent years, joining perennial classics like “A Chorus Line” and “Grease.”

And of course, there’s Hairspray, the John Waters movie that developed into a Tony award-winning musical and went on to become this past summer’s hit movie musical.

Upcoming film productions of “Mamma Mia!” and the New York set “Doubt,” both starring Academy award-winning Meryl Streep, prove that film and theatre will continue to inspire each other for years to come.