My pal Bob Elisberg laments that when they made the movie of The Producers — that is to say, the movie version of the Broadway musical based on the original movie — they filmed but decided to cut the opening number, "The King of Broadway." Bob doesn't understand why and thinks that ruined the picture. I think a lot of things combined to make that movie a lot less than wonderful, starting with the fact that we'd already seen a much better, unbeatable telling of that particular story on film. But I can give him a partial answer…
When the movie version of the play came out, I attended a screening — one of those events designed hopelessly to promote Academy Award nominations — at which co-author Thomas Meehan spoke and took questions from the audience. I asked him to talk about the decision to remove this number, which was kind of obvious. (If you look carefully in the film, you can see Nathan Lane for a split-second, entering to perform it before they cut to the next scene.) Mr. Meehan said he regretted the decision but the film did not "test" well with audiences and when they excised that number, it tested better…and there was no arguing with the difference. He said the only real debate was over who would get stuck with the unenviable task of telling Nathan. I believe the omitted number is on the DVD, as so many omitted scenes are these days.