But it was with "Barefoot in the Park," a comedy inspired by his and his young wife's experiences living in a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village, that Mr. Simon became a Broadway name.
Among them: a Grey's Anatomy spin-off titled Private Practice, which follows Dr. Addison Montgomery to a Los Angeles-based wellness clinic; Dirty Sexy Money, a drama about a lawyer who is paid big bucks to represent a corrupt family; and Cavemen, a comedy inspired by the Geico Insurance ads.
Before "Vega v. Vega," Longoria got ABC interested in developing "Trust," the American adaptation of the Colombian telenovela "Pura Sangre," and sold a comedy inspired by a real-life sex therapist to NBC.
It's a Wonderful World (1939) was a screwball comedy inspired by Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934); Stewart starred as a fugitive on the run, and Claudette Colbert was a runaway poet (rather than a runaway heiress, as in Capra's film).
The Netflix projects include four new films, including a musical comedy inspired by the songs of Pedro Infante, a series of documentaries about the border executive produced by Gael García Bernal, and a series about Tejano legend Selena.
Now Evans is banking on a romantic comedy inspired by Mozart's Così Fan Tutte – and with a Mozart soundtrack – becoming a similarly unexpected hit.
"Mistress America," billed as a screwball comedy inspired by urban eighties capers like "After Hours" and "Something Wild," has an eighties-ish soundtrack, with compositions by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips meant to evoke New Order, OMD, the Human League, and the beginning of "Tootsie".
"When you pass King George high on his horse looking down at you every day," said Elmgreen, who lives nearby, "you think: What can I do to cheer up that old chap?" In November, they will be in New York to present "Happy Days in the Art World," a dark comedy inspired by the Samuel Beckett play "Happy Days".
In "Living Out Loud," her new film, a romantic comedy inspired by two Chekhov stories that opens next month, the actress plays a woman who sees life with new eyes after her husband leaves her and she develops a friendship with her elevator operator, portrayed by Danny DeVito.
Say the wrong word on your mobile these days and you could end up in a pool of blood in Waterloo Station by lunchtime - especially if you're a Guardian reporrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... SR Shonkiest Hotel: Hostel 2 Eli Roth's shrill protestation that his torture-porn splatter flick franchise was actually a black comedy inspired by Abu Ghraib gained some currency with this gruesome sequel.
CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN Here's something you don't see every day — or ever, really: a surreal comedy inspired by both Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters" and the work of the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Paul D. MacLean, author of "The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions".
