Half a decade after a deluge of documentaries exposed the fraudulent Fyre Festival, Taika Waititi and Rita Ora are teaming up to produce a stage show based on the failed Caribbean event.
The real-life couple and prolific commercial and independent film director Bryan Buckley announced Fyre Festival The Musical on Monday, which Buckley will direct and serve as book writer, with Waititi and Ora producing alongside Matthew Weaver (We’re the Millers). The new production is described as, “Not just a Greek-sized tragedy of one man’s con. It’s a satirical indictment of an entire generation. Fyre Fest The Musical. It’s about as wrong as a bad idea can go.”
“Working in the theater is always fun,” Waititi shared in a statement. “I mean I haven’t done it for 15 years because it was no longer fun, but I’ve been told it will be fun this time. And I believe them. When Bryan Buckley told me he wanted to make a musical about the Fyre Festival, I said, ‘Who the hell is Bryan Buckley?'”
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Waititi continued to explain, “I then remembered we’ve been friends and work mates for 15 years so it was kinda hard to say no. Honestly, I think the idea is exciting, weird, and potentially disastrous, which seems apt and is how I like to work. I can’t wait to get started and snatch me some of that sweet American theatre money.”
Buckley’s production company Hungry Man Productions, which is behind Fyre Festival The Musical, has produced several projects of Waititi’s, including commercials he directed for brands like Apple and Lays, trailers for his films Jojo Rabbit and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and the music video for Ora’s 2023 single “Praising You.”
“I never saw myself doing a theatrical musical comedy,” Buckley shared in his own statement. “But then again, I never saw something completely mind-bendingly ridiculous and intriguing as what went down with [Fyre Festival]. A spectacular failed endeavor — that will haunt a generation forever. I cannot wait to get this show out to the world. And yeah, man, this time there will actually be music or your money back.”
Hungry Man Productions will also launch a 100-foot barge decked out with “guerrilla art installations” into New York Harbor from Staten Island this week, to anchor in Brooklyn and serve as the musical’s official kickstart.
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The first and only edition of the Fyre Festival was organized by the businessman Billy McFarland in 2017. McFarland envisioned the event as a luxury music festival, and enlisted the rapper Ja Rule to co-organize and models Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski to help with promotion.
The event sold tickets in the thousands that ranged from $500 to $12,000 depending on accommodations, and boasted a line-up including acts like Pusha-T, Blink-182, Disclosure, and Migos. But when attendees showed up on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma on April 28, they were greeted with ratty tents, dirty mattresses soaked with rainwater, seemingly none of the promised celebrity and musical guests, and scanty provisions that became widely memed.
McFarland canceled the festival within 24 hours of its opening day, forcing attendees to brave the elements as they waited for return transportation, with every other hotel in Great Exuma already fully booked for the season. He was eventually sentenced to six years in jail for defrauding investors.
The Fyre Festival was widely covered in the media, and two documentaries exploring its faulty conception and disastrous execution were released in 2019.
Hulu offered Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason’s Fyre Fraud, which boasted an interview with McFarland himself that ultimately proved controversial when it was revealed the fraudster was paid for his time. Chris Smith’s Fyre also released the same month on Netflix.
McFarland attempted to revive the festival in 2023. His faulty planning led to multiple location and logistical shifts stretching through this past spring, when he finally caved, and put the brand up for sale.
