NEW YORK -- Portrait of a "Eureka!" moment, Mel Brooks-style.

The musical The Producers had become the unlikely toast of Broadway, and creator Brooks, stars Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane and director Susan Stroman found themselves in a studio, recording the cast album.

"We were on a break," Stroman says, "and out of the blue Mel jumped up and said, 'We're making this into a movie!' It was like in the movie, when (crooked producer) Max Bialystock says, 'Worlds are turned on such thoughts!' "

Recalling the same moment, a sardonic Nathan Lane recalls telling Brooks, "And Danny DeVito and Ben Stiller will be great in it!"

Which is, as they say in theatre, the rub. Because as unlikely as is The Producers -- a Broadway musical based on a cult '60s movie about a scheme involving a Broadway musical -- it's even more unlikely that The Producers would have made it full circle to a movie again without the duo that made it happen on Broadway.

Both Lane and Broderick had plenty of stage credits prior to latching onto Brooks' crazy project (Broderick's early years were consumed being Neil Simon's proxy in the autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues). But somehow the combination of the two just resonated -- to the tune of 12 Tony Awards and a sold-out season.

There were other successful productions, of course, notably with Martin Short and Jason Alexander -- and some not so much (the T.O. production). But any question about Lane and Broderick's contribution to the box office was answered with their recent reunion in Broadway's The Odd Couple, which pre-sold $21 million worth of tickets, a record for a "straight" (non-musical) play.

What's the secret of their chemistry? "It's the sex," says Lane. "That's what's kept us together. And we never go to bed angry."

"We've made that joke a lot," Broderick says in a separate interview. "But it's true we don't go to bed angry, in that we don't let fights fester and we don't have very many. We've done two plays together, but people act like it's been a whole career in vaudeville or something."

Still, there were weird coincidences involved in their pairing. But first, some history. The Producers (1968) was Mel Brooks' first directing effort, a dark and screamingly funny story about an unscrupulous producer and gigolo to old ladies (Zero Mostel) and a nebbishy accountant (Gene Wilder) who realize you can make huge money from a Broadway flop by illegally overselling shares. To that end they seek out the worst play in the world and think they found it in Springtime For Hitler, a musical about Der Fuhrer's human side. Except it is so surreally bad, it becomes a hit.

The original Producers bombed at the box office, but lived on as a cult favourite. In 1998, music impresario David Geffen convinced Brooks to revive the project as an over-the-top musical, with songs by the comedian himself and book by his writing partner Thomas Meehan (Spaceballs). The new movie, which opens this week, is for all intents simply the musical on-screen with a slightly larger cast. It brings along Broderick and Lane, as well as Broadway standouts Gary Breach and Roger Bart (the crazy pharmacist on Desperate Housewives) as gay-as-springtime director Roger DeBris and his "live-in assistant." Hollywood names include Will Ferrell as Hitler-worshipping playwright Franz Liebkind and Uma Thurman as the blond bombshell receptionist Ulla.

"Mel and I had met once before," Lane says. "He and Anne (Bancroft, Brooks' late wife) had come to see me in a play. Later, I was on vacation and was in the hotel pool and the two other people in the pool were Anne and Mel. We chatted, and he said 'Y'know, I'm working on a musical of The Producers, and I think you're the only person to play Max Bialystock.' "

His first meeting with Broderick was a little more awkward. They met at the opening of the movie The Lion King, in which they'd voiced the characters of Simba and Timon. Though the characters are best friends in the film, the two actors had voiced them separately and had never met. "He's shy, not unlike me," Lane says, "so we both thought we hated each other when in fact we were just too shy to talk.

"When (The Producers musical) came together, we had a dinner and finally talked, and it turned out we had a similar sense of humour and it worked out."

The release of the movie finds Broderick head-to-head at the box office with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker in The Family Stone. "I hope they both do well," he says. "It would certainly make things easier around the home."

And as for his "other marriage?"

Says Lane: "Well, no one has talked about a film of The Odd Couple and we have no plans. We would like to see other people I think, at this point."

THE PRODUCERS
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman
Directed by Susan Stroman
Opens Friday
Rated: PG