Trey Parker and Matt Stone Originally Planned to Make ‘Book of Mormon’ As An Animated Film

When news broke that the South Park guys were making a Broadway musical, few would have guessed it would go on to win nine Tony Awards. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were probably surprised as well, since their original intention for Book of Mormon was to make an animated movie as a follow-up to one of their biggest movie successes. 

That’s what one of the musical’s original stars, Josh Gad, told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his Dinner’s On Me podcast, via Indiewire. “Trey and Matt thought that they were going to do it as an animated film. It was going to be their follow-up to Team America. And we ended it,” Gad explained about a live reading of the script. “The response was effusive, albeit people were definitely taken aback and shocked. And they had a huddle and they decided in that moment, ‘Let’s try this as a live theatrical thing.’”

Gad was so stoked to be involved that he claims he turned down a role in a long-running sitcom. He and Ferguson laughed about auditioning together for Modern Family, with Gad up for the part of Cam. “My wife still to this day bashes me,” Gad confessed. “The guys (presumably the Modern Family producers) really wanted me to do it with you.” 

Eric Stonestreet’s residuals didn’t mind that Gad went for Book of Mormon instead.

Ironically, Gad “was looking for a way out of my Book of Mormon contract” when he signed up for another sitcom, the short-lived and long-forgotten 1600 Penn. “God help us all,” he said. “We all make mistakes sometimes.” 

While Parker and Stone’s original plan to make Book of Mormon into a movie was scrapped, a film version will likely be made at some point. There’s a Book of Mormon IMDb page with stage collaborator Robert (Avenue Q) Lopez listed as a writer alongside Parker and Stone. Over the past few years, original Broadway stars Gad and Andrew Rannells have both expressed interest in reprising their roles for a film. That said, they’re getting a little long in the tooth to play young men (usually between 18 and 25 years old) embarking on a Mormon mission.

Could Parker and Stone instead return to animation for a movie adaptation? 

They’re old hands at it with 26 seasons of South Park under their belt. But it’s doubtful that the two would go the stop-motion puppet route they employed in Team America: World Police. While making that movie, Parker vowed to never go near puppets again. “You could threaten to kill my family and I would not make another puppet movie. If my mother would die if I would not make another puppet movie, she’d be dead,” he explained. “I’m totally serious.”