Carrie Underwood to Star in New Sound of Music

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the gay executive producers behind NBC's Smash, have chosen Carrie Underwood to star as Maria in their upcoming three-hour live remake of Sound of Music, which will air on television in late 2013.

“Speaking for everyone at NBC, we couldn't be happier to have the gifted Carrie Underwood take up the mantle of the great Maria von Trapp,” NBC's entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt told The Wrap. “She was an iconic woman who will now be played by an iconic artist.”

The producers released a statement saying that having Carrie Underwood as the star of this new Broadway to screen adaptation of Sound of Music "brings it to a new generation who will fall in love with it for the first time as many millions of people already have. It's a particular joy to us as producers to see this amazing artist stretch into new territory with this classic musical."

So will viewers take to Underwood, the country music sensation who was an American Idol winner years ago, in filmdom's Julie Andrews role as an aspiring nun who cares for the seven Von Trapp children? Perhaps if, like Andrews, Underwood can also "Climb Every Mountain."