Finally, after all these months, La Cieca begins to understand the ways of Fthà in arranging the universe so that Francesca Zambello would be chosen new honcho (honcha?) of the Glimmerglass Festival. At first it seemed this turn of events was to transpire only so that dear  ‘Cesca could stage half-baked feminist rewrites of Annie Get Your Gun up in the middle of nowhere, but, no, that wasn’t it. In fact, He Who Was Young Ere the World Was Old (i.e., Fthà) had more far-ranging plans in mind. 

And what, you ask, might those plans entail? Why, Working Title Films is going to produce a live-action version of the material that made “Zambello” synonymous with top-quality Broadway musical theater-flavored cheese spread, The Little Mermaid.  And since good old Fthà has arranged for Cesca to have her hands full up in Oswego Oneonta Ataypura Otsego, the picture will have to be helmed by someone else (or, as I believe it was put in the production meeting, “anyone else”) who in any case is Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist). Joe, you’ve got your work cut out for you surpassing the haunting sense of melancholy Cesca brought to this delicately wistful material.

[Variety, via Gawker]