Annie Director Will Gluck 'Scared' About Ruining Kids' Childhoods with Updated Version

Creating a modern-day Annie is anything but a walk down Easy Street. At the Billboard and Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Conference, Will Gluck, director, producer and screenwriter of the upcoming Annie film sat down to discuss the daunting task of taking such an iconic score from Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin and adapting it for a remake set in the present day.

“I was very scared going into this, if I was going to ruin a lot of kids’ childhoods,” Gluck said. “A lot of people who love Annie were Annie, their sisters were Annie, their moms were Annie…so we didn’t want to touch that memory. But that didn’t stop him from creating what he refers to as his version of a superhero movie. “We wanted to create our own. And I hope we did it.”

Of course, bringing the story to the 21st century meant some major changes to the plot. We don’t expect a chorus of homeless people flipping the musical finger to Herbert Hoover. As the story changed, “the lyrics had to change. And when we changed the lyrics, then the melodies changed along with it. So it’s a much different movie, but it’s all rooted in the same story.”

Original composer Strouse and lyricist Charnin were on board with the choices. Gluck recalled that when showing Strouse their new take on one of the numbers, “He started crying, because he saw his music going to the next generation, living on past him.” He added, “They loved the movie, they’ve seen the movie and they love what we did. It’s still their Annie.”

Catch the new Annie in movie theaters beginning December 19.