10 Things I Hate About You is being turned into a stage musical by Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen

You know how they say Hollywood has no new ideas, content to remake and reboot the same stories over and over again?

The reality is a little more nuanced than that but it certainly adds to an impression that the industry is happy to be a recycler. Brand extensions and intellectual property are king when a crowded marketplace makes it hard for any new stories to break through, and we all know nostalgia sells.

Done with the right team and intent, new iterations of a familiar favourite can be very effective, especially if they’re a modern update or is more in conversation with today. Or, if you inject a bunch of songs into it.

Stage productions are expensive to develop and mount, and they’re vying for audiences willing to shell out, sometimes, more than $200 for a ticket. So it’s no surprise that beloved movies have become fodder for the theatre.

Heath Ledger teen drama, 10 Things I Hate About You, has become the latest film to be adapted as a stage musical.

The production is headed to Broadway with Lena Dunham writing the book (script) alongside Jessica Huang and pop star Carly Rae Jepsen doing the music with Ethan Gruska. Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.

The 1999 movie starred Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Larisa Oleynik in a high school story that was loosely adapted from William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. The role was Ledger’s break-out star turn internationally and cemented his status as a teen heartthrob.

The film was not a musical, although the band Letters to Cleo was featured in several scenes throughout, including during the end credits.

Movies with a musical focus including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Xanadu, Muriel’s Wedding, Grease, Wild Rose, Moulin Rouge, Once and High Fidelity are natural inspirations.

Sometimes what were jukebox musicals on screen (Sister Act and The Wedding Singer) can become a musical onstage with original songs. This can be a surprising choice for audiences turning up expecting I Will Follow You and instead getting generic musical ditties that aren’t even in the style of Motown.

But, more often than not, like 10 Things, what becomes an all-singing, all-dancing story on stage didn’t start off that way on screen. 10 Things is also not the first teen movie to go down this road.

Cruel Intentions debuted as a jukebox musical in 2015 using not just the songs from its soundtrack but other iconic pop hits from the era including No Doubt’s Just a Girl, Britney Spears’ Sometimes and Sixpence None the Richer’s Kiss Me (even though the latter song is associated with She’s All That and Dawson’s Creek).

Bring It On was adapted by Lin-Manuel Miranda while Tina Fey and her composer husband turned Mean Girls into a stage production, which was then, in an ouroboros moment, turned back into a movie.

There’s been a Bend it Like Beckham musical, a Legally Blonde one and a Can’t Hardly Wait musical in the works. Still on the teen front, The Outsiders, the angsty and definitely dramatic 1983 teen film that featured early career performances from a slate of would-be stars including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze and Diane Lane, debuted on stage in 2023.

Similarly, the 1973 caper The Sting, horror movie Carrie and Waitress, a film about domestic violence, didn’t scream stage musical, but here we are.

Not everything was well-advised nor well-received. Gone with the Wind, the 1939 epic which was lauded for its filmmaking but has in recent years come under fire for its racist “Lost Cause” narrative, opened in 2008 in the West End but closed after 79 performances.

Still, the trend shows no sign of abating. There’s a 2007 episode of Fey’s 30 Rock in which Jane Krakowski’s character Jenna Maroney is starring on a stage musical version of Mystic Pizza. It was played for laughs, and the joke was later revisited when Jenna won a fake award for “Best Actress in a Movie Based on a Musical Based on a Movie”.

In 2021, the Mystic Pizza stage musical premiered in the American state of Maine.

Australians will also get their chance this year to take part. There are productions of Beetlejuice and Back to the Future musicals opening on our shores.