Sony Pictures the Latest Studio to Make Broadway Push

By PATRICK HEALY

Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed a five-year deal with Broadway producer Scott Sanders (“Evita,” “The Color Purple”) to mount stage versions of the studio's films, with their first project being a musical adaptation of the 1982 Dustin Hoffman comedy “Tootsie.” The deal, which was announced on Thursday, represents the latest move by several Hollywood film studios to capitalize on theater-goers' appetite â€" particularly tourists visiting New York â€" for musicals based on popular movies or books; most Broadway musicals these days are adaptations, like the top-grossing shows “Wicked” and “The Lion King” and new hits like the Tony Award winner “Once” and the Disney musical “Newsies.”

As part of the deal, Sony has purchased a 20 percent equity stake in Scott Sanders Theatrical Productions, a five-year-old company whose partners include Mr. Sanders, Robert Kraft, David Kraft, Roy Furman and Jim F antaci. Mr. Sanders' company declined to provide the dollar amount of the stake, which gives the company a first-look advantage at the Sony Pictures film library.

To help oversee the expected increase in theater production, the Sanders company has brought on Sandy Block, a 25-year veteran of Broadway marketing and advertising, most recently at the firm Serino/Coyne. Mr. Block will have the title of producer and vice president/theater, the same as the current company executive Carol Fineman. Mr. Block is widely respected among other Broadway producers and investors, and his transition from marketing guru to hands-on producer will be one of the more interesting job transitions among Broadway insiders this year.

Among the film studios involved with Broadway, Disney stands out for having an ambitious, in-house division to develop shows for New York and theater touring markets; its other musicals include “Mary Poppins,” “The L ittle Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin.” The Warner Brothers film studio is bringing a musical version of “Elf” to Broadway this November (as it did around the winter holidays in 2010), and Universal has been a producer on the Broadway movie-to-musical adaptations of “Billy Elliot” and the current “Bring It On,” both of which were distributed as movies by Universal.

The “Tootsie” musical is in the very early stages â€" no creative team has been announced yet â€" and it is unclear how many projects can be developed in the scope of the five-year deal; it often takes more than five years to bring a single musical from the drawing boards to Broadway. Mr. Sanders and his partners are now looking at other Sony properties as possible stage adaptations.