April 15, 2019
Patsy & Loretta first look: See Megan Hilty and Jessie Mueller as the country legends in upcoming Lifetime movie
In honor of Loretta Lynn’s 87th birthday, EW is sharing the first image from the upcoming Lifetime movie Patsy & Loretta.
The film stars Megan Hilty of Smash fame as Patsy Cline and Jessie Mueller, who won a Tony award for her portrayal of Carole King on Broadway in Beautiful, as Lynn. The movie aims to tell the story of the friendship between the two country music legends, which ended with Cline’s untimely death in a plane crash in 1963.
The photo depicts the two stars on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, aka the “Mother Church” of country music. (Coincidentally, Lynn was recently feted right down the street from the Ryman for her birthday, complete with Keith Urban jumping out of a birthday cake.)
Lifetime has greenlighted Patsy & Loretta, an original movie about the friendship between country music stars Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Smash alum Megan Hilty will play Cline, whose hits included “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces,” and Broadway’s Waitress star Jessie Mueller is set as the “Coal Miner’s Daughter” singer.
Watch Craig and Neil’s interview with Pete Hammond’s “Behind the Lens” at Deadline:
Feature Film
“Some Like it Hot,” the classic cross-dressing caper often hailed as among the best movie comedies ever, is being re-adapted as a Broadway
“Jesus Christ Superstar Live” carried NBC to a win in the Nielsen overnight ratings on Easter Sunday.
A conceptual and artistic triumph, NBC’s live telecast of “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Easter Sunday may have finally justified the recent live musical fad on network TV. Some technical flubs and one mixed-bag lead performance aside, the production was genuinely thrilling, taking chances with the staging of a classic but controversial Broadway show, much more daring than previous live musical broadcasts like “The Sound of Music” or “Peter Pan.”
Craig and Neil recently produced the musical number at The Oscars for Mary J. Blige’s “Mighty River”:
Fox 2000 emerged from a bidding battle that resulted in a substantial seven-figure deal for an untitled original musical fantasy about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s the first original musical from composter/lyricist Stephen Schwartz since Wicked, and it will be scripted by David Magee, the Life of Pi scribe whose latest is the Rob Marshall-directed Mary Poppins Returns which Disney releases Christmas Day. The film will be produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the team behind Chicago and the upcoming Jesus Christ Superstar Live! which they are producing with Marc Platt. Schwartz will also be producer. Magee is exec producer with Mark Nicholson, who runs development and production for Zadan/Meron Productions.
Jordan Peele’s Get Out and James Ivory’s Call Me By Your Name won the marquee film awards tonight at the 70th annual WGA Awards, in concurrent shows in New York and Los Angeles. It puts both screenplays on the frontrunner list for the Oscars.