Unauthorized ‘Friday Night Lights’ Musical Headed to L.A.
Friday Night Lights — the book, turned movie, turned TV show about football in a small Texas town — will assume a new cultural form next year when it’s staged as a musical in Los Angeles, E! reports.
The Unauthorized Friday Night Lights Musical will be based primarily on the beloved NBC series, which ran between 2006 and 2011. The show will even feature series star Scott Porter — who played golden boy quarterback Jason Street — as Coach Taylor (originally portrayed by Kyle Chandler).
Porter confirmed his involvement on Twitter with a Dubsmash video, in which he mouthed along with one of Chandler’s recitations of the Dillon Panthers’ rallying cry, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
The musical dropped other production details on its Twitter feed, including, “Much like #TheOCMusical before it, The Unauthorized #FNLMusical will feature songs from its five-season run.” It’s unclear exactly what this will entail as the show’s primary soundtrack comprised instrumentals by Texas outfit Explosions in the Sky. But hopefully, Landry’s Christian metal outfit, Crucifictorious, will get the shine they always deserved.
Fans of the series will also be relieved to know that the FNL musical “comes with all of the feels” and “none of that Tyra/Landry murder plot,” which bogged down Season Two.
The Unauthorized Friday Night Lights Musical is being put on by Sucker Love Productions, whose previous projects include a musical adaptation of Cruel Intentions and The Unauthorized O.C. Musical, which opened in August.
Sucker Love is the brainchild of TV writers Jordan Ross and Lindsey Rosin, who recently inked a deal with NBC for a Cruel Intentions sequel series. The show will follow the son of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe’s characters — conceived before the latter’s death — who discovers his father’s infamous journal and leaves his small Kansas town to attend a prep school in San Francisco.