After Into the Woods, Will Director Rob Marshall Take Stephen Sondheim's Follies to the Big Screen?

While Broadway fans eagerly await the chance to go Into the Woods on Christmas Day with Disney’s all-star film version of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical, director Rob Marshall might be looking ahead at another show that begs for a big screen adaptation.

‘I’d love to take a look at Follies,” Marshall told Broadway.com, when asked which other Sondheim musical he’d like to bring to the screen.

With a score by Sondheim and book by James Goldman, Follies follows a group of former performers who are reunited on the stage of a soon-to-be-demolished Broadway theater where they once starred in a lavish musical revue. Many Sondheim standards are featured in the Tony Award-winning score, including “Broadway Baby,” “I’m Still Here,” “Could I Leave You?,” “In Buddy’s Eyes” and “Losing My Mind.”

Follies premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on April 4, 1971 under the direction of Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, running just over a year with 522 performances. A cult favorite, the show has enjoyed many notable rebirths including a starry 1985 concert at Avery Fisher Hall, a 1987 London premiere, a 2001 Roundabout Theater Company revival on Broadway, a 2007 concert staging at City Center Encores! and a 2011 Broadway revival that premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

A true Broadway baby who got his start as a performer, choreographer and director on the Great White Way, Marshall has become Hollywood's top director for modern movie musicals. Acclaimed past projects include the Oscar-winning Chicago (which earned him a Best Director Academy Award nomination), the 1999 TV redo of Annie and Nine, which received four 2010 Oscar nominations.

Proving to be adept with big showbiz numbers (Chicago), dreamy flashbacks (Nine) and Sondheim smarts (Into the Woods), this seems like a winning idea for Marshall. Cross your fingers and start dream-casting, Broadway fans!