"School of Rock" moves from the big screen to Broadway

NEW YORK (WABC) -- It was a hit movie that is now moving to the Great White Way.

"School of Rock" was a 2003 hit starring Jack Black as a struggling rock singer and guitarist.

At the time, it was the highest grossing musical comedy of all time. But how will it all translate on stage?

The little I have heard of it says to me, "School of Rock" will translate just fine, and I loved the movie with Jack Black.

Tuesday morning, we met Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, who gave us the longest-running musical in Broadway history, "The Phantom of the Opera", to hear why he decided to make the movie a musical.

"School of Rock" is based on a hit movie, but has the added attraction of new songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"The first thing you have to remember when you're doing anything is not to destroy people's memory of what the movie was so you have to be very loyal and true to it," said Webber.

Two songs from the original have been preserved, as we found out in June when the composer previewed his new show at a small theater in Chelsea.

22,000 kids auditioned for the class run by substitute teacher "Dewey Fin", with only a handful selected, and each of the young virtuosos really plays.

"And it's really in the end about how music empowers you and sets you free," Webber said.

A message not lost upon moving to the Winter Garden Theater, once home to his big hit musical "Cats". "It's pretty intimate for a Broadway house, this," he said.

The opening is still a few months off, but he's come here to show us a new "360" music video. "Above, below, everywhere you look you can see what's going on," said Webber.

A new way of promoting a new show.

That new show opens on Broadway in December, and come next year there may be many more performances all across the country in schools. Sir Andrew has come up with a plan to make scripts and scores available just after the show opens, so young people everywhere can enroll in the "School of Rock".