Paula Wagner will produce a film adaptation of long-running musical “Miss Saigon” and is developing the project for Lee Daniels (“Precious,” “Shadowboxer”) to direct reports Variety.
A screenwriter is about to be hired and financing discussions are under way with former United Artists head Wagner’s newly formed Chestnut Ridge Productions.
Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil’s production debuted on London’s West End in 1989 and until this day is the tenth longest-running Broadway musical in musical theatre history (just behind “The Lion King” and just ahead of “42nd Street”).
A contemporary adaptation of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” opera, the production changed the setting to the Vietnam War and tells of the tragic love story between a Vietnamese bar girl and an American soldier in the days leading up to the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Shooting is aiming to begin next year for a theatrical release in 2011.
