Adaptable

I find it amazing that none of the “experts” quoted in “Here’s an Idea . . . Take This Film to Broadway” (by Patrick Pacheco, Oct. 18) could cite the most obvious reasons most film-to-stage adaptations fail: the availability of the same material on cable and video as well as lackluster casting in the leading roles.

Unless a producer comes up with a novel approach of putting the story on stage (a la “The Lion King”), audiences are savvy enough to realize they’re being taken for a ride. A case in point was the musical version of “big,” which not only missed the point of the story with a lackluster script and songs but compounded the error by casting a lackluster performer in a role Tom Hanks had played to perfection on screen. (And guess what? The original errors were compounded in the show’s touring version!)

RICHARD STEVENS

Los Angeles

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The reason why the public is being served up misguided musical adaptations of “big,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “Carrie” and, Lord help us, “Footloose” is the same reason that the film industry continues to put out ideas based on popular old TV shows and “Saturday Night Live” sketches.

Why do producers go into their respective entertainment fields if all they’re interested in is recycling old ideas from other mediums? How many critical and financial failures does it take for them to grasp that there’s actually more risk by investing in what is already successfully established than having the courage and vision to get behind that which is unique, innovative and well-crafted?

ANDREW CHUKERMAN

Los Angeles

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The practice of musicalizing from other mediums is hardly new. As far back as the ‘20s, “The Three Musketeers” and “If I Were King” were prime examples, without ruining Broadway’s health. (The latter, of course, was retitled “The Vagabond King.”)

I’ve never been able to understand why naysayers object so strenuously to a big-screen musical heading east to Broadway but see nothing wrong in a Broadway musical heading west to Hollywood? Shouldn’t every coin have two sides?

DAVID R. MOSS

Los Angeles

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As far back as 27 years ago the popular British TV spy series “The Avengers” (broadcast in the U.S. on ABC-TV in the mid-’60s) was transformed into a stage production.

Titled “The Avengers,” the play starred Simon Oates as John Steed (replacing TV’s Patrick Macnee) and Sue Lloyd as Steed’s fifth partner, Hannah Wild. It ran for only several weeks in Birmingham and London.

DANNY BIEDERMAN

Encino