Today is Rex Manning Day, the day at the center of the 1995 record store-based comedy/drama Empire Records, so hopefully you didn’t forget to hang your Liv Tyler Wreath or leave a friendly Anthony LaPaglia-O’-Lantern on your porch. Broadway producer Bill Weiner is one person has never forgotten to decorate his Ethan Embry Tree on this hallowed day, and now Deadline is reporting that he’s developing a stage musical based on the movie with original writer Carol Heikkinen.
This comes from Deadline, which says the musical is being planned for 2020, Empire Records’ 25th anniversary, and the music and lyrics will be written by Afterwords’ Zoe Sarnak. In a statement, Sarnak says “the film’s music so iconically captured the sound of that decade,” adding that the main cast of characters were also her idea of “the coolest misfits.” Heikkinen also notes that 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.”
