Edgar Wright likened Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to a musical, except where musicals break into song, Scott Pilgrim broke into fight.  For a future project, Wright may turn pacifist and direct a straight-up musical.  Wright recently hosted a screening series at the New Beverly in Los Angeles, where the theme was movies he had never seen.  He explained the selection of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg like so:

“I’ve written a script which is kind of like a musical.  Slightly a departure for me in some ways, but when I’ve told people about the movie and the idea, most of them have said, 'You’ve got to see Umbrellas of Cherbourg.'  So here we are.”

Hit the jump for speculation on where this musical fits into Wright's upcoming slate.

Thanks to The Movable Fest [via The Playlist] for the quote.  The phrase "kind of" raises the question whether this script is a musical, or just similar to a musical in some unspecified way, like Scott Pilgrim.  However, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is entirely sung, like a cinematic opera.  My instinct says that if Wright's friends saw the script and immediately thought Cherbourg, there is some singing in there.  Assuming there is a similarity in plot, here is the synopsis for Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg:

the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg-poster

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery (a luminous Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant (Marc Michel). [Fandango]

Wright has three projects in the works that we know about: Ant-Man, The World's End, and Baby Driver.  Without some major revisions, Kind of Like a Musical is probably not Ant-Man.  Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost tackled specific genres with their previous movies: zombies in Shaun of the Dead, action in Hot Fuzz.  It's possible that "musical" could be next in The World's End, though I wouldn't bet on it.  Pegg previously said of The World's End:

"If Shaun of the Dead was about leaving your 30s and taking responsibility and Hot Fuzz was about being a man, then the next one will be about being an old man."

I mean, they could sing about growing old.  But I don't see the possible Cherbourg connection.

We don't know much about Baby Driver, only that it is "a wild spin on the action and crime genre which will be set in the US."  Given how little we know about it, this could be the one.  But again, I don't see how Cherbourg fits with what we do know.

So my guess is that this is a separate project.  One that could take years to make if it has to wait in line behind Ant-Man, The World's End, and Baby Driver.  I hope we hear more soon, especially if this is a straight musical.