Rita Ora And Taika Waititi To Produce ‘Fyre Fest’ Musical
The stage musical adaptation is based on the infamous failed 2017 luxury music festival.
TAIKA WAITITI AND RITA ORA: Courtesy of @ritaora
Rita Ora and husband, filmmaker Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit), are set to bring the infamous ‘Fyre Festival’ back to life, this time as a stage musical comedy.
The couple is teaming up with director Bryan Buckley, who will also serve as the musical’s book writer. The production is described in the official synopsis as “not just a Greek-sized tragedy of one man’s con. It’s a satirical indictment of an entire generation. It’s about as wrong as a bad idea can go.”
The first and only Fyre Festival took place in 2017, organized by businessman Billy McFarland with rapper Ja Rule as co-organizer. They also enlisted models Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski to promote the event as a luxury music getaway.
Tickets for the event were sold for as low as USD 500 and as high as USD 12,000, along with a promised lineup of artists including Blink-182, Pusha T, Disclosure, and Migos.
But when festivalgoers arrived on Great Exuma in the Bahamas, they found half-built tents, meager food, and no trace of the promised luxury experience. The event was eventually scrapped within 24 hours, and McFarland was later convicted of fraud. In 2018, he was sentenced to six years in prison.
In 2019, Netflix released a documentary exploring the festival’s disastrous execution. In 2023, after his release, McFarland announced plans to revive the festival, which was initially scheduled for December 2024 but was postponed in April 2025.
Ora released her latest album, You & I, in 2023, while Waititi’s most recent film, Next Goal Wins, was released the same year. He is next set to direct the dystopian sci-fi drama Klara and the Sun and a new film based on the comic book character Judge Dredd.
