Some delightful news: Ice Cube is teaming up with Disney and Tommy Kail, the Tony-award winning director of Hamilton for a “modern and musical” take on that old chestnut, Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
The Hollywood Reporterreports that Ice Cube will be all over this thing, co-starring, producing and writing the adaptation, which will be a “modern musical with sources describing it as crossing many genres, including hip-hop.” If that wasn’t abundantly clear because of Hamilton, well, now you know.
The tragic tale of Oliver Twist, child laborer turned pickpocket apprentice, has been adapted many times. The most notable version is Disnye’s 1988 animated musical Oliver & Company in which Oliver is an adorable ginger kitten who runs with a pack of equally adorable animated dogs that run the streets of New York City. If you’re not familiar with that underrated Disney hit, surely you’ve sat through a high school musical’s capable staging of Oliver! or have regaled someone with your best British accent in an imitation of this scene, from the 1969 movie musical.
In this adaptation, Ice Cube will be playing Fagin and while it is unclear precisely what era this will be set in – “modern” could mean a lot of things – it might turn out just fine.
