This is an idea/concept I had for a Spy vs Spy adaptation, but WHAT IF…. Not a movie,, but musical stageshow with no singing and the main focus is on dance, primarily tap and MAYBEE Ballet??? Something like that but definitely tap for the spies. Oh yeah and the spies are puppets.
I would imagine the Spy puppets (in terms of style and functionality) being a hybrid between the puppets from The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak and The Lion King where the puppets are essentially a flattened upper body which has sleeves that an actor (who is also dressed up as one of the spies) place their arms into, (like the picture below on the left), and the head of the puppet is controlled via a string or plastic rod connected to the hat of the actor so they can move it around freely, (like the picture below on the right). Kinda make sense…? I might make a drawing later of what I mean.
The actors perform the dances and movements of the characters while facially expressing the emotions that the spy puppets can’t make since they’d be extremely limited. This would make them double event puppets where you can see both the actor and the puppet.
Another cool stylization choice for the set, props, and the actors is that everything is black and white with an exception of anything scarlet red and lapis blue (yes this is purple but closest I got you get the idea). Perhaps the actors could wear grey body paint to intensify this effect.
The actual story itself… idk. It’d probably be a shit ton of the original comics, animated series, and video game adaptations stitched together into a horrible frankenspy’s monster abomination thing. I would include the video games because I think including the PS2 Spy vs Spy video game bosses would be cool, they deserve fans of their own imo. The main antagonist could be the Rogue general but I think diving into the spies’ own psychology and internal struggles as a main point of conflict would work as well, and it would also keep it serious enough that people don’t think the target audience is children while also not getting TOO deep for Spy vs Spy.
These are all just ideas and stuff I had. Any thoughts or things to add? Genre of music they’d be dancing to? Something else? I feel like Spy vs Spy would work better as a stage production than a movie because lots of stageshows are based off comics and also it seems to be a better fit for the media.
Update: I made cover art for this idea
