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Bobcat Goldthwait Making a Musical Based on a Kinks Album

by Alex Billington
August 17, 2009

I hope everyone knows who Bobcat Goldthwait, the Police Academy turned filmmaker who is responsible for one this year's finest dark comedies, World's Greatest Dad. That film is the third feature that Bobcat has directed, and considering the great response its received since premiering at Sundance earlier this year, I think we can expect Bobcat to continue directing more films, even if this doesn't prove to be a big hit at the box office. In looking forward to what's next, Bobcat recently told CHUD that he's working on a "spree killer script" first and then planning to do a musical based on the Kinks album called Schoolboys in Disgrace.

It seems a bit odd to make a musical like this, but then again, the Kinks were apparently "writing full-tilt rock operas" when Schoolboys in Disgrace came out in 1975. The Kinks are an English rock band probably best known for their songs "You Really Got Me" and "Sunny Afternoon." The album actually has a story to it, about a "naughty little schoolboy" and his gang that always played tricks on the teachers. When he gets "into very serious trouble with a naughty schoolgirl," the Headmaster decides to disgrace the naughty boy and his gang in front of the whole school, causing him to turn into "a hard and bitter character" afterward.

Goldthwait said that what drew him to the album "was the idea of a story about someone who becomes a villain because he keeps having his legs kicked out from under him by authority." That's actually a great idea for a film, especially a rock opera (if that's what this musical is to become). Not that it hasn't been done before, and not even that World's Greatest Dad is anything like that, but it's a concept that I think could be explored in great ways by someone like Bobcat. After seeing World's Greatest Dad twice now and loving the hell out of it, I'm in for whatever he decides to do next, be it a killer movie or a musical. What about you?

Filed under Movie News, Opinions

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