Catch Me If You Can was a great movie, largely in part because Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio carried the film, but now we’ve learned that the musical based on the movie will arrive in 2011.
If you’re unfamiliar with the real life story that inspired the film, basically a kid figures out how to con banks out of their money by portraying himself as a Pan American pilot and then forging checks and going on the run for years.
That kid Frank Abagnale Jr. was eventually caught and then paid millions of dollars by major corporations to show them how to avoid banking fraud, while creating “unforgeable checks.” Heck Abagnale Jr. even has a consulting gig for the FBI, the very organization he ran from for so much time.
Here’s what Producers told Playbill.com about the new musical:
Catch Me If You Can “captures the astonishing true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a world-class con artist who passed himself off as a doctor, a lawyer, and a jet pilot—all before the age of 21. With straight-arrow FBI agent Carl Hanratty on Frank’s trail, we’re off on a jet-setting, cat-and-mouse chase, as a jazzy, swinging-sixties score keeps this adventure in constant motion. In the end, Agent Hanratty learns he and Frank aren’t so very different after all, and Frank finds out what happens when love catches up to a man on the run.”
What do you think? I’ll be skipping this one unless Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio revive their roles. Even then it would be a toss up if I would show up.
The show will kick off in New York’s Nederlander Theater on March 7, 2011 and will feature Wicked’s Norbert Leo Butz in the role of FBI agent Carl Hanratty and Aaron Tveit will play Abagnale Jr.
