Tony winner Rob Ashford will make his feature film directorial debut with the movie musical, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Filming is expected to begin in the fall for Paramount with Lloyd Webber attached as a producer. No other casting has been announced.
Ashford has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning for Best Choreography in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie. Ashford’s other Broadway choreography credits include The Wedding Singer, Curtains, Cry-Baby, Evita, and Disney's latest Broadway outing, Frozen. He directed and choreographed the Broadway revivals of Promises, Promises and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Ashford won an Emmy for his work on the 81st Academy Awards and also directed and choreographed the live TV productions of The Sound of Music and Peter Pan Live!
Close starred in the original 1994 Broadway production of Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, earning a Tony for her work as faded silent-screen star Norma Desmond, as well as the acclaimed 2017 revival. The prospective project was first reported in January 2016, prior to Close taking on the Hollywood star once more at the London Coliseum before a Broadway bow at the Palace Theatre. At the time, co-lyricist and book writer Christopher Hampton hoped shooting would begin while Close was still in London.
It had been over 20 years since Close opened the original Broadway production, but the seven-time Oscar nominee used the years away from Norma Desmond to find a new window into the character.
“I'm not saying I'm getting better, but I am saying that I do have more experience,” Close told Playbill as she discussed returning to the role first seen in the 1950 Wilder film. “With more knowledge of myself and experiences I’ve had and heartbreaks I’ve had and enduring as I have—theoretically, an actor should only get better because our bodies and our minds and hearts are the material with which we build characters.”
