The Business
'Big Fish' the Musical
In the late 90's, John August read the book Big Fish by Daniel Wallace and convinced Sony to buy it for him to adapt into a movie. That film , directed by Tim Burton, came out in 2003. Even then August knew he wasn't done with the story. For the last nine years he's worked on developing Big Fish into a Broadway musical .
By Kim Masters • • 1 min readIn the late 90's, John August read the book Big Fish by Daniel Wallace and convinced Sony to buy it for him to adapt into a movie. That film, directed by Tim Burton, came out in 2003. Even then August knew he wasn't done with the story. For the last nine years he's worked on developing Big Fish into a Broadway musical. Now it has just opened to preview audiences at the Neil Simon theater in New York. John August and producer Dan Jinks, who with his partner produced the movie Big Fish, talk with Kim Masters about their learning curve in mounting a musical and the differences with making movies. Plus, they outline how they carefully developed the story for years in secret with Tony-nominated lyricist and composer, Andrew Lippa.
