About

Broadway / Film Adaptation refers to parodies of the way cinematic adaptations of Broadway musicals tend to cast actors in lead roles even though they've aged well beyond the age of the character they're supposed to play. The parodies were inspired by the upcoming cinematic adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen, which cast the 27-year-old Ben Platt in the title role, though the character is supposed to be a high-schooler. The format is an offshoot of the Netflix Adaptation meme.

Origin

In the cinematic adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen, the title role is played by Ben Platt, who originated the role on Broadway. Early reviews of the film have commented that Platt looks too old for the role.^[1] On September 9th, 2021, Twitter user @hackermanjoe^[2] joked about the age difference by comparing two images of Fred Savage on the set of The Princess Bride, labeling an image of a child Savage on set as "Broadway" and an image of a grown-up Savage on the set as "Film Adaptation." The tweet gained over 800 retweets and 8,400 likes (shown below).

Spread

The tweet inspired others to adopt the format, showing aged versions of actors and characters. For example, user @MaxHeadblog^[3] posted two pictures of Charlie Sheen (shown below, left). User @bswoffs^[4] posted images of the Nevermind baby (shown below, right). The meme was covered by the Daily Dot.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References