Matthew Broderick Turns Down "The Producers"

The Broadway musical will now close on April 22, six years and a few days after it opened. Broderick and Nathan Lane had been asked to come back for one last hurrah and Lane was ready to go. Broderick declined for lots of reasons: both he and Lane are tired of being joined at the hip, they'd already returned to the show once before, he was still smarting from negative reviews for "The Odd Couple" and he was hurt that Mel Brooks had all but offered him the lead in the musical version of "Young Frankenstein" but had later changed his mind. All of that probably, perhaps, maybe contributed to his decision. (It's been a while since I've read Broderick's mind, actually, so I can't be certain.) But I think one reason overshadows all the others and it's the right one: they'd already said goodbye to the show twice, already caught lightning in a bottle twice, so why tempt the fates for one more grab of cash? It was time to move on and they already did and there was absolutely no good reason to try and do it again other than money and they've got plenty of that already.