Ready to cut loose again?

Hot off their Best Picture Oscar win for Chicago, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have signed a deal with Paramount Pictures to transform 1984's Kevin Bacon vehicle, Footloose, into a full-blown big-screen musical, Daily Variety reports.

Of course, everyone knows the original Footloose is probably better remembered for its kickin' Kenny Loggins-driven megaselling soundtrack than its story about a teenage boy who challenges a conservative small town's ban on rock music and dancing by organizing a, yes, dance.

The Herbert Ross-helmed flick made Bacon a star and helped spur a series of music-fueled '80s hits that showed the importance of soundtracks as an ancillary marketing and money-making tool.

Footloose employed an innovative idea for its time--having screenwriter Dean Pitchford not only write the screenplay but also pen lyrics for the soundtrack, ensuring such tunes as Loggins' title cut, Denise Williams' hit "Let's Hear It for the Boy" and Bonnie Tyler's "Holding out for a Hero" went with the action unfolding on screen.

The new movie musical will take a similar approach, using those songs in addition to four new originals Pitchford has been commissioned to write. But unlike the 1984 film, which pretty much played as a straight drama, the characters in this version will sing and dance within the story, just like Chicago.

"We'll use the same premise but write a new script that will use new film techniques to make a dynamic musical," Zadan tells Variety. "We want to bring aboard as director of photography James Chessanthis, who worked on our Judy Garland movie [2001's Emmy-winning Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows] and has researched the latest cinematic technology. We'll find a young cast that sings and dances, and the original songs will have brand-new arrangements that will make them more appropriate for a contemporary audience."

No word on whether Bacon will be ready to kick off his Sunday shoes again.

The new movie will have nothing to do with the recent Broadway version of Footloose.

Meanwhile, following the success of Chicago, Zadan and Meron have a whole slew of musicals movies in the works.

The pair, who recently produced an ABC version of Broadway classic The Music Man with Matthew Broderick, are also joining forces again with Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein for a new adaptation of Guys & Dolls. Weinstein, who championed and released Chicago, indicated that the new Guys & Dolls musical is his top priority for future Oscar glory.

It's not known whether Zadan and Meron have talked with Rob Marshall, Chicago's Oscar-nominated director who choreographed and directed the duo's 1999 TV production of Annie, about coming aboard either project.

Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge opened the door for the return of the movie musical at last year's Academy Awards when it scored the first Best Picture nomination for the genre in 22 years, but it was Chicago's win (the first since 1968's Oliver!) that really got Hollywood in a song-and-dance tizzy.

To that end, USA Today reports that Phone Booth director Joel Schumacher is set to adapt Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway smash, Phantom of the Opera, for the big screen. Webber originally hired Schumacher 13 years ago to direct a movie musical based on the Gaston Leroux novel about a disfigured musical genius haunting a Paris opera house, but the project stalled.

Now, according to the filmmaker, Phantom's flying again, with most of the crew including a musical director, conductor and production designer in place. All he needs now is to find a twentysomething actor with good enough pipes to take on the role that was first made famous on the Great White Way by Michael Crawford. Fortysomething stars John Travolta or Antonio Banderas were originally rumored to don the mask, but Schumacher said he's aiming younger to reach a wider audience.

"The Phantom has to be limber enough to fly around the stage," he said.

Other productions also being considered for the big screen are Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, a musical thriller about a Victorian-era barber-serial killer who slits the throats of his customers and The Life, about New York's Times Square in its grittier porn days. There have also been reports that the current Broadway smash Hairspray is being fast-tracked at New Line, but the studio has so far refused to confirm.