As with most musical adaptations of movies, there are a bunch of changes from the film. In another of our series looking at these changes we go over some of the biggest changes to the Bodyguard The Musical!
Spoiler warning for both the film and the musical!
The story of both the film and the musical deals with celebrity Rachel Marron, who is under threat of being killed by a mysterious stalker. A big difference comes in who the stalker is and why they are out to kill her.
In the movie, Rachel’s sister Nikki is revealed to have hired a hitman in a drunken fit of jealousy, and then didn’t know who it was so couldn’t call it off.
In the musical this is changed to Nikki writing back to an obsessed fan who wrote to Rachel because she wanted to feel like the star. This leads to the fan being more obsessed and a threat.
The musical is set in the current day and so there is modern technology and characters take selfies and social media is included in the story. This often happens with shows, but in a story focussed on a stalker, it can certainly up the stakes of how they stalk.
Unlike in the movie, Rachel’s original bodyguard Tony and new bodyguard Frank don’t get into a fight in the musical.
Frank gives Rachel’s son Fletcher a clearance badge so he can attend the Oscar’s. This is later stolen by the stalker, and this is how he gets access to the Academy Awards for the show’s climax.
In the musical Frank allows a temporary bodyguard to be hired who is actually the stalker – this makes Frank looks an idiot…frankly. This is how the stalker gets hold of the clearance badge for the Oscars and it’s weird that this wouldn’t be accounted for at some point.
In the movie none of this happens and instead we get a scene where Rachel flirts with Greg Portman at a party, and he is who turns out to be the stalker, but she doesn’t realise this at the time. She flirts with him to make Frank jealous and probably lights more of a fire on the situation.
In the musical, if I remembered correctly, Rachel seemed to be nominated for best song rather than best actress as she is in the film. I may be wrong on this one, but it makes more sense as this is a musical and lends itself to having the focus be on a song.
The stalker doesn’t pretend his gun is a camera in the stage version as he does in the film. In the movie Portman is pretending to be a camera operator with his gun concealed inside. In the musical he has his gun with laser sight visible. This is probably just so it translates better to stage as the audience wouldn’t be able to see a close up of the camera to reveal it is in fact a gun.
The stage show doesn’t end with Frank and Rachel having a passionate kiss at an airport as the film does. Instead they have a more definitive goodbye. This makes it more obvious that they go their separate ways where as the movie could be interpreted as less conclusive that they don’t continue their relationship.
The ending of the show is full out Whitney Houston tribute act with I Wanna Dance with Somebody sung. At this point it no longer has anything to do with the film.
In both the movie and the Musical Rachel performs at a gig and things get out of hand with audience jumping up onto the stage to dance with her. In both versions there is a stalker present, but the musical makes things a much bigger threat with a slow motion sequence of the stalker almost getting Rachel. In the movie frank just grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprays and blasted people out the way. He then picked up Rachel and blasted the stalker in the face.
In the movie there is a stalker and a hitman who get conflated by the authorities as one person. This allows the hitman to continue to get closer to Rachel even when the obsessed fan is captured.
There is no boat explosion in the musical version. The stalker sets a bomb on a boat at Frank’s father’s cabin in the movie, and as this would be difficult to achieve to show on stage it is omitted.
Rachel has a momentary jitter on stage whilst performing at the Oscars in the musical version, but doesn’t storm off early at the Oscars like she does in the movie.
In the movie the hitman is named Greg Portman. In the credits of the musical he is just named The Stalker. I’m not sure if he’s named in the stage version.
In the musical is appeared Frank was just shot in the arm when he jumped in front of the Stalker’s bullet, but in the movie Frank is more seriously shot in the chest.
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