Tom Hooper Goes From KING’S SPEECH To French Singing With LES MISERABLES

Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of a beloved classic finally coming to the movies?

One of the most important and famous modern musicals, Les Mis hasn’t been part of the small-scale musical movie revival. The reason, I assume, is that it’s a technically demanding show, and the Venn diagram of Actors Who Can Open Movies and Actors Who Can Handle Real Singing, Not That Talk-Singing Crap From Sweeney Todd has few overlaps. Like Anne Hathaway, for one.

There was a non-musical version a decade back, starring Liam Neeson as the fugitive bread thief Jean Valjean and Geoffrey Rush as the obsessed Javert, hunting him down, and Claire Danes as Cosette. It was taken directly from Victor Hugo’s novel and was fine, but the real joy of Les Mis is the music by Claude-Michel Schönberg. I can’t wait to see it get the big screen treatment it deserves.