How's this for a deadly combo? Disney. David Oyelowo. And Oscar-winning Moonlight screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney. And they're coming together on a live-action musical. Just take my money now.
Oyelowo will star in the McCraney-scripted musical which is titled Cyrano the Moor, and if you guessed it to be a combo of Cyrano de Bergerac and Othello, you win! How that's going to play out is anybody's guess because the two stories don't really seem to mesh. Cyrano de Bergerac is about a poet with a very large nose and no self-confidence who becomes a wingman of sorts to a handsome man's efforts to win the heart of the beautiful Roxanne. Othello is about how a man with everything sees his life destroyed by the jealous Iago.
For modern takes on both stories, check out Steve Martin in Roxanne, and O starring Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, and Julia Stiles. Oyelowo just had an off-Broadway run playing Othello opposite Daniel Craig, so he's well versed on the material.
Disney has high hopes for Cyrano the Moor, planning it to be a lavish musical in the vein of Beauty and the Beast and their other classics. [Deadline]
