It's already pretty inexplicable that Green Day's American Idiot album is being turned into a Broadway musical, but then again, there's pretty much nothing they won't try on Broadway these days. But converting the whole thing to a movie, before anyone has actually had a chance to see the play? Tom Hanks thinks it'll work.

Deadline Hollywood reports that Hanks's Playtone production company is in talks to bring American Idiot to the screen, much as they did with Mamma Mia! in 2007-- though that one had already been running for years before Playtone picked it up. The musical is based entirely around Green Day songs, and follows three childhood friends who take different paths in life as they get older. It's your classic jukebox musical formula, and one that has worked from musicians ranging from the Four Seasons (Jersey Boys) to every 80s hair metal band you can imagine (Rock of Ages).

It seems kind of like a fluke, though, that it worked at all onscreen in Mamma Mia!, and that movie's success seems to have more to do with Meryl Streep's bubbly enthusiasm and the Greek settings than anything worthwhile about the story. That movie targeted the same middle-aged females likely to buy Broadway tickets; American Idiot seems to be aiming for a much younger, much more male audience that rarely makes it to Broadway, and usually prefers their movies music-free. Is this plan so crazy it might work, or just totally ridiculous? I'm leaning toward the latter myself.