Don’t Hold Your Breath For The BOOK OF MORMON Movie

This weekend I was able to see Book of Mormon, the extraordinary new stage musical from South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The show is about Mormon missionaries in Africa, and it's hilarious, filled with catchy songs and actually touching in the end. And while the show has been embraced by the mainstream Broadway crowd, Stone and Parker have not changed their ways one bit; the first act show-stopper is Hasa Diba Eebowai:

 includes these lyrics:

Hasa Diga Eebowai!
Fuck you, God, in the ass, mouth, and cunt-a
Fuck you, God, in the ass, mouth, and cunt-a
Fuck you, God, in the ass, mouth, and cunt-a
Fuck you in the eye!

I loved the show, and I found the touring company to be incredible. I wanted to leave the Pantages and just buy tickets for the next day's show (they're incredibly expensive, so I didn't. But I am planning another viewing before the show closes on November 25th).

After the show Matt and Trey came out and did a Q&A; many film bloggers had been invited, so the assumption was that they were announcing the movie version. They weren't. At all. In fact, there's not much movement on the movie version at all right now.

Said Trey Parker: 

When we first started working on it seven years ago we kind of toyed with the idea of it being a Broadway show or being a movie and obviously since Matt and I knew how to make a movie we were just like well let's make a movie 'cause we can do that pretty quickly, but we stuck with it and after we saw our first few workshops with an audience, we were like nah, this would be cool as a stage thing. As we were doing scenes of course, I was always kind of visualizing as a movie 'cause that's just what I knew.

Once we made the decision to go to the theater, we made a bunch of decisions that were really best for the theater version of it. It would really take a rethinking. We wouldn't want to just do this on film. We'd have to really rethink it. But I think we could redo it.

So I don't think it would be a really difficult thing, but it would also have to be a pretty different animal when we're done with it. We don't talk about it too much right now or think about it, but it's very possible one day. That's all I know.

The duo remain involved in the show's touring company and are working on more episodes of South Park (they have no idea what the next episode will be about, even though they start in a few weeks) and a video game. When asked if they would be willing to let someone else step in and direct the movie version, Matt Stone was adamant:

No, I don't think anyone else would direct it. The cinematic vision is pretty strong. I mean, I think we want to do a movie of it someday but, right now, we're just trying to get our head around this version.

Los Angelenos, see Book of Mormon. You can buy tickets here. New Yorkers, you already know to see it.

Everybody else, buy the soundtrack. Until the movie comes out this may be the only way you'll get to experience a show that is, frankly, brilliant.