Potential rock operas?

By Chris Barton and Margaret Wappler, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

Some creative collaborations make perfect sense, others not so much. In the "not what we would've expected by a long shot" category, EW.com reported earlier this year that "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin has signed on to write the script for a Broadway musical version of the Flaming Lips' 2002 psychotropic album, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." The possibility made our imaginations run wild. What other artists were primed for pop opera magic?

The Flaming Lips, as written by Aaron Sorkin ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"): When EW.com reported news of this collaboration, the blogosphere lit up with, well, mostly a lot of mystified head-scratching. Although it now appears that the deal isn't quite as final as Coyne initially indicated, it's still irresistible to imagine Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue colliding with the Lips' strange, psychedelic world. As Coyne joked to EW, "Maybe that means they'll need to build a stage with a lot of hallways on it."