Empire Records is Being Revived as a Broadway Musical

Liv Tyler, Renée Zellweger, Debi Mazar, Robin Tunney, Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Ethan Embry, Brendan Sexton III, Johnny Whitworth, and James 'Kimo' Wills in "Empire Records"

The 1995’s comedy-drama Empire Records will follow in the footsteps of movies like Groundhog Day, Amelie, and Mean Girls to find a new life as a Broadway musical. According to Rolling Stone magazine, the musical is set to premiere in 2020, on the 25th anniversary of the movie. Information about the director, cast and other members of the creative team will be announced at a later date.

The original movie starred Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Renée Zellweger, Johnny Whitworth and Liv Tyler, among others, and revolved around the group of record store employees who fight to stop their store from being sold to a big chain. Although the movie wasn’t favored by critics and was a commercial failure, Empire Records still remains popular with the audience.

“The film has developed a cult audience over the years, and addresses issues that people of all ages can identify with,” said the producer of the musical, Bill Weiner, to Rolling Stone. “It also evokes an interesting period in time, the Nineties, where the music business was changing – and a lot of people remember that as part of their youth. I knew we had something when I would tell people about the show and consistently see faces light up – everyone has a story, whether it’s that they saw the movie 10 times, stole the video cassette from an older sibling or the soundtrack was the first CD they ever purchased.”

Carol Heikkinen, who wrote the script for the original, will also serve in the same role for the musical adaptation of the movie.

“The movie was really about a family that formed among these minimum-wage record clerks,” said Heikkinen in a statement. “There’s a lot of nostalgia now for those old record stores, where you could go and talk to people who loved the same music you loved, and discover new bands. We hope the musical will capture the memory of what it was like to be young in a time before iTunes and Spotify – music is such an important part of the youth experience, and it’s what brings these characters together.”