South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are forming their own studio, called tongue-in-cheekily enough Important Studios. Having their own studio will allow the pair to develop any type of film, television or stage project for themselves or for others without having to interest a distributor beforehand.

As Parker states in today’s press release, “Having worked with several different studios over the years, we came to realize that our favorite people in the world are ourselves.”

One of the first projects the studio may embark on is a film adaptation of the pair’s Broadway hit The Book Of Mormon, which won nine Tony awards.

In addition to wooing investors, the pair have brought a sizeable stake of their own money to the project. And future revenue from South Park and The Book Of Mormon will be funneled into Important as well. Parker and Stone have a rather unqiue 50-50 revenue sharing deal with Comedy Central for any income from South Park merchandise. Currently, Book Of Mormon has already grossed an estimated $200 million and continues to generate in the neighborhood of $4.6 million between the Broadway production, a recently opened Chicago production and the national touring company. A London production is set to open later this year.

And while I am sure that Parker and Stone will also produce projects for other people, it is the freedom that having their own studio will give them to pursue their own projects is what excites me about this news. The pair have worked on a couple of intriguing projects that never managed to come to fruition for whatever reasons (Fuzzies, Giant Monsters Attack Japan), so it will be interesting to see what they will be able to come up with while unfettered by the purse strings of others.

For decades, it was musicals and plays from Broadway making the trek to the silver screen. Now, with finances being the way they are on the Great White Way, theatrical producers are turning more and more to the world of film to adapt for their next stage production. Although, my knee-jerk reaction to the latest transder is that I can’t see anyway that it will ever work.

The Hollywood Reporter is telling us that Universal Pictures Stage Productions is adapting the 1978 comedy Animal House for the Broadway stage as a muscial. Yes, as a musical.

The adaptation has some talent behind it. The musical with be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicolaw, who was nominated for a Tony Award in both capacities for his work on The Book of Mormon (he won the directing award). Book will be from Michael Minick, known most for the well-received off-Broadway production, Sex Lives of Our Parents. The Barenaked Ladies are providing the score, and, one assumes, songs for the production, thus completing the lifeline of an pop alternative rock band from the 1990 (start indie, build a fan following, get signed by a major label, put out a couple albums before you breakthrough, put out a couple more albums that are popular, dip in popularity, get dropped by label, go back to indie labels, lose a founding member and, now, apparently, provide the score for a Broadway musical).

The band did score Shakespeare’s As You Like It  for the Stratford Festival of Canada in 2005, but that was when Steven Page was still in the group and he took a major role in the scoring.

The policy of turning films into Broadway musicals, whether they fit or not, has been a mock-worthy pursuit since the disastrous Carrie musical in the 1980s, but this project seems to be having fun pokes at it from the get-go. This is what screenwriter Mark Evanier had to say about the adaptation:

And I can already imagine the promotions: Half-price tix on Toga Night if you come dressed in a bedsheet. Or they’ll do it like a Gallagher concert and the first three rows will be wearing trash bags to protect their clothes during the Food Fight.

Evanier might be jesting in good humor, but he does point out certain limitations in bringing Animal House to the stage. The comedy might not seem like a sweeping epic, but, from a stage perspective, that’s essentially what it is. Just off the top of my head I can think of at least six different locations where pivotal scenes take place (Outside Delta House, inside Delta House, Dean Wormer’s office, the school cafeteria, the road house where they see Otis Day and the Knights, and the main street) that will have to be presented on stage. Not to mention the finale, one of the most important parts of the film, that is one big orgy of chaos and destruction involving marching bands, parade floats and collapsing bandstands. That would be near impossible to present on stage anywhere close to the way it appears on screen, let alone in such a way that it could be reset for a performance every night and two on Wednesays and weekends.

Perhaps I am just being overly negative. The musical is still in the development stage and who know when, or if, it will hit the stage. Maybe they will figure out a way to make it all work ou

It seems like a fait accompli that at some point there will be a film adaption of The Book Of Mormon. The Broadway musical has opened to rave reviews (including our own), won nine Tony Awards earlier this year, is currently sold out for nearly the next two years and has a touring version being prepared to hit the road in December 2012. The show is a smash success for creators Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez and back in April, Parker and Stone stated that a big screen adaption was definitely something that was being talked about.

That possibility now much more of a reality, and we will be seeing a cinematic version of Book Of Mormon. It just won’t be right away.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Parker stated that a Book Of Mormon film is an inevitability after the Broadway show and touring company run their courses.

Hopefully [the show] will have a big run and a big tour and then we can do the movie in several years.

Stone added -

We want to do it some day. The great thing is, a lot of Broadway teams would have to go team up with a Hollywood producer and bring on a Hollywood director, but Trey’s a director and [the musical's producer] Scott [Rudin]’s a great producer. We’ve all made movies. So it’s kind of cool, it can stay in the same family.

As I said back in April, I would love to see a big screen adaption of Book Of Mormon, especially if they can get as much as of the original cast to participate as possible. (Josh Gad is a must!) I think the show has enough material in it that can be opened up for a cinematic version. And as subversive as the musical is of certain Broadway tropes, I can easily see Parker, Stone and Lopez being equally so with a movie version. And, if you’ve seen the show, you just know that the show-stopping production number “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” could only be even cooler when realized on film.

Could the biggest Broadway hit of the season be making its way to the silver screen?

It’s possible. In the midst of a story that ran at Deadline over Easter weekend (classy scheduling there) concerning some in-development film projects that might rile up various conservative religious types, it was reported that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have thought about the possibility of bringing their musical The Book Of Mormon to the big screen. Parker and Stone confirmed that while no offers have been forwarded, the duo have discussed the possibility of a film version with the musical’s producer Scott Rudin.

Co-created with Avenue Q‘s Robert Lopez, Book Of Mormon opened this past March to rave reviews (including our own) and packed houses. Of course, much of the press coverage surrounding the show has been centered on the fact that the show does make fun of various aspects of the modern orthodoxy, but neglects to mention that it also is ultimately very respectful of the religion’s practioners.

And while Deadline’s overall piece was slanted towards making the point that studios can be skittish about producing films with overtly religious controversial material, Parker dismissed the notion that Book Of Mormon‘s subject matter would keep Hollywood from knocking on their door.

We’ve learned in our careers that as long as something is successful, they will give you money for it. They just want to make money in Hollywood, they don’t really care. As long as the musical continues to do well, I don’t think it’s going to be hard at all.

I would love to see a big screen adaption of Book Of Mormon, especially if they can get as much as of the original cast to participate as possible. (Josh Gad is a must!) I think the show has enough material in it that can be opened up for a cinematic version. And as subversive as the musical is of certain Broadway tropes, I can easily see Parker, Stone and Lopez being equally so with a movie version.

And, if you’ve seen the show, you just know that the show-stopping production number “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” could only be even cooler when realized on film.

Let’s face it, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been making musicals for years – from their independent film Cannibal: The Musical to the big screen incarnation of their cartoon South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. It isn’t unusual for South Park characters to break into song when the story or a good joke demands it. It was only a matter of time before the pair found themselves with a “legitimate” musical production on Broadway. That production is The Book Of Mormon, a clash-of-cultures story that definitely retains their trademark razor sharp satirical edge and which is currently in previews at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre with its opening scheduled for March 24.

(I know that there has been some outcry from the producers of the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark musical just a few blocks down from Book Of Mormon over poor reviews while their show was still in previews and could theoretically still undergo some changes before it’s official, oft-delayed opening. However, outside of a couple of scarcely noticeable gaffs, the performance I saw only a week into the show’s preview run was as solid and well-oiled a production as one that has been up and running for some time. So I feel no compunction in talking about it.)

Elder Price (Andrew Rannells) has just completed his training and is excited to be heading out for the obligatory two years of missionary work ringing doorbells and trying to interest people in the Book of Mormon as required for all young men in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Although he could be sent anywhere in the world, he prays that he gets his dream assignment of Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately, Price is instead assigned to a poor small village in Uganda. Making matters worse is that he has been partnered with Elder Cunningham (Josh Gad), someone somewhat lacking in social skills and with the propensity of just blurting out the first thing that pops into his head when he doesn’t know the answer to a question. Think a variation on The Odd Couple but one where Oscar might be suffering from blunt force head trauma and low grade Turettes.

Neither of the two is prepared for what they discover in Uganda. It is nothing like The Lion King. Poverty is everywhere. A local warlord keeps the villagers living in fear. The Mormon missionaries already there have not been able to convert a single soul. And none of the villagers’ homes have doorbells to ring! Price is shocked by the state of affairs while Cunningham falls for local village girl Nabalungi (Nikki Price), though he can never get her name right. The tough conditions are enough to test even Elder Price’s boundless faith as he and Elder Cunningham struggle to find a way to bring the word of their religion to the people of Uganda.

Now perhaps the above summary doesn’t necessarily hint at big laughs to be had, but you have to remember that this is a story being gunned through Parker and Stone’s unique comedic filter. The result is some of their most hysterical work in recent memory and certainly the sharpest bit of satire from them since Team America: World Police, tackling many of the problems currently plaguing much of the continent of Africa.

It would be unfair to ruin so many of the show’s great moments. (The show’s Playbill goes out of its way not to list any song titles and to keep certain characters’ names obscured.) As the element of surprise is so important to comedy, I’m going to do you a favor by not spoiling anything to specifically. (Unlike most of the coverage from journalists who saw the show’s first 25 minutes prior to the opening of preview performances and made a big deal over one specific song which the villagers sing to greet the missionaries.) The show does have a couple of big production numbers in each act, two of which in the second half of the show could easily each be the most audacious things presented on Broadway in years.

This isn’t the first time that Parker and Stone have used the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a jumping off point for a story. Parker’s independent comedy Orgasmo featured a Mormon missionary who finds himself a reluctant pornstar who needs to adopt his superhero screen persona in real life. Mormonism, as well as every other major religion, has served as targets for barbs on South Park over the years as well. And while The Book Of Mormon makes some of the same points that the pair have made previously, it does so with a story that is a little sweeter but no less hysterical than before.

As evidenced in their past work, Parker and Stone know their musical theater. Some of the songs in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, written in conjunction with Tony Award winner Marc Shaiman, bare the unmistakable influence of Rogers and Hammerstein (“Uncle Fucka”) and Andrew Lloyd Weber (“La Resistance”). Here, they use that knowledge to sly subvert musical theater conventions in many moments of the show, through song, dance and staging. One of the big production numbers in the second act definitely feels inspired by something from the second act of The King And I.

Although they are both professed atheists, Parker and Stone don’t seem to be necessarily ridiculing people of faith so much as some of the odd conventions of belief. The book never holds up the Mormon missionaries to ridicule and the cast plays them fairly sincerely, with just a trace of exaggerated enthusiasm. The show does point out that there are some things in the Mormon religion that might not make much sense to someone outside the faith, but that could probably be said for every creed. If anything, the show’s sensibilities ultimately fall somewhere in the general vicinity of Kevin Smith’s film Dogma in terms of debating between blind adherence to scripture versus spirituality.

In all this praise for Parker and Stone, I don’t want to let mention of Robert Lopez pass by. As co-creator of the show Avenue Q, he brings his own raunchy Broadway comedy street cred to the proceedings. It’s just that the show is steeped in much of what fans of Parker and Stone have come to expect from the pair, it is hard not to think of the show as exclusively theirs. As Lopez gets equal billing with the two for writing The Book Of Mormon‘s book, lyrics and music, it seems as if the pair have found another comedic mind that is on the same wavelength. I await a time when all three get to sit down and discuss their individual contributions to the show.

I recall back in 1997 telling a Comedy Central press person after watching a tape of the first two episodes of South Park a month before its premier, “This show is either going to be a hit or protested right out of existence. Possibly both.” Well, we all know what happened there. And this past Friday evening, I had the same feeling while watching The Book Of Mormon. But if all Mormons are as relentlessly as nice as they are portrayed in the show, then I don’t think that there will be any picket lines in front of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. Which just leaves The Book Of Mormon being a hit.