New Line Cinema wants Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal to start singing and dancing for a big screen adaptation of the classic musical "Damn Yankees" says Variety.
Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, the writers behind City Slickers are set to write the script.
The musical is being produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the duo behind hit movie musical Hairspray.
Premiering on Broadway in 1955 --The award winner, tells the tale of Joe Boyd, a happily married middle-aged man whose devotion to a hapless pro baseball team prompts him to make a Faustian bargain with the devil to help the team. He's transformed into slugger Joe Hardy, in exchange for Boyd's soul. Boyd can break the deal, but the deadline occurs during the World Series. For good measure, the devil engages Lola, a gorgeous lost soul, to seduce the slugger and seal his fate.
The original musical was directed by George Abbott and choreographed by Bob Fosse, with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross
It was turned into a 1958 film directed by Abbott and Stanley Donen.
Carrey would play the devil, and Gyllenhaal would play Boyd.
The update plans to use the show's classic tunes like You've Gotta Have Heart" while putting a modern spin on a musical from the 1950s.
No doubt Jim and Jake are talented but I've never heard either of them sing....
Then again--I suppose the same could have been said of John Travolta before his musical turn in the movie version of Grease in 1978... and that turned out very well
Don't be shocked if we soon don't see a remake of that popular movie as well....
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