Anyone tired of movies being made into musicals?

[Spacedog78]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:28pm

So i know some of the movies that have been made into musicals are great (i.e. Hairspray), BUT is anyone getting a little tired of this new trend?

I mean, I didn't see The Wedding Singer, High Fidelity, or the Legally Blonde preview, so I can't comment on them, but now we have Shrek and others coming up and I am just wondering if they are running out of original ideas.

Anyone else sick of this new trend? Or does anyone think it is getting a little out of control?

Updated On: 2/2/07 at 05:28 PM

[TWSFan4Ever]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:31pm

To me: it depends what it is. For example, I completely love Hairspray and Wedding Singer, and am already obsessed with Legally Blonde. I also like the Disney productions, all of them (yes, including Tarzan ). But when it comes to Shrek and some others, it depends. To me: Shrek doesn't seem like a musical, but I guess we'll have to see.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:33pm

Not movies specifically. I'm just tired of stupid, silly, Hairspray-esque musicals. Sometimes if I hear the comment, "It was just fluff -- but it was GOOD fluff, and it was fun," one more time, I'll vomit.

Not everything has to be funny. Not everything needs to be family-friendly. Not everything needs to be self-aware and sarcastic. I have ZERO interest in Legally Blonde or Treasure Island, no matter how hard I try.

Broadway needs more Piazza and Grey Gardens and less Hairspray and Legally Blonde.

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:34pm

Got bad news, this "trend" is not going anywhere. Broadway is about tourism mostly these days (there are exceptions, Company etc). Producing a show based on a property with instant name recognition value is only an asset in the minds of Broadway producers, and I don't blame them.

[Spacedog78]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:36pm

Mother's Younger Brother

I agree. I loved Piazza, and though I had no interest in Gardens when I was in NY last week, I am sorry i missed it.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:36pm

Oklahoma --> Green Grow the Lilacs
Hello Dolly --> The Matchmaker
Carousel --> Liliom
Aida --> Aida

It's not the source material, it's what you do with it that counts. Almost every classic musical you can mention has a source material; very few are original. Maybe that says something more about the dearth of American culture than it does why Broadway seems so interested in recycling.

[elmore3003]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:38pm

I'd like to see a few secondrate films turned into firstrate musicals, but it's a rare occasion!

[Spacedog78]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:39pm

Seanmartin

The source material lately has been movies though and it's getting kind of old. Notice in my original post I didn't mention The Color Purple or others that come from books. I am just wondering what happen to ORIGNAL ideas and ORIGINAL shows.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:44pm

I don't mind what the source material is. I'm just tired of the DRS's and the Wedding Singer's of the world, that's all.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:45pm

You miss my point. There is nothing original going on here. In the 40s and 50s, books were the commanding cultural medium, so it's obvious why producers then would be looking at books as source material. In the 20s and 30s, it was other plays. Now it's movies, because that happens to be the cultural engine. In the future, it may be musicals based on music videos by Lindsey Lohan wannabes... who knows. But Broadway will always be taking from whatever popular trends there might be out there. It doesnt think original because in most cases it cant. It has to work with something that already has a track record of some kind.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:47pm

This again? ORIGINAL musicals with ORIGINAL ideas are rare and ones that succeed are even rarer. It's always been that way. The idea that Broadway is mostly about tourism these days is a bit off. broadway has been mostly about tourism for almost 20 years now. Every art form has trends. Every trend has a beginning and an end. This trend, like so many others, will eventually wane when interest wanes. But until then, we have the originality of Avenue Q, Grey Gardens, Drowsy Chaperone, Spelling Bee and Spring Awakening, which is a damn good batting average for shows with mostly original material. And LoveMusik is on the horizon. Not sure there is that much to complain about.

Updated On: 2/2/07 at 05:47 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:48pm

It's not lately though. Movies have been adapted into musicals for decades.

[ashbash1990]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:48pm

so sick of it... Broadway needs more creativity, or at least producers should give more NYMF shows a chance...

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 5:51pm

Creativity is alive and well on Broadway. You think the sets, costumes, orchestrations, lighting, direction and performances create themselves? Creativity is not confined to merely the source book material or score.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 6:02pm

Producers will start giving more NYMF shows a chance when audiences do. NYMF caters to a very small demographic, scarcely large enough to keep a show playing for a month on Broadway.

However, the cream will always rise to the top. For every year we have to sit through a Spamalot we get a Spelling Bee. With Wedding Singer came The Drowsy Chaperone. Original material can succeed, but it's got a heck of a battle ahead of if. Unless it's really good, like much of The Drowsy Chaperone, it's going to be dead before it even gets a chance.

Capitalizing a Broadway musical today costs 10.million.dollars. The name recognition of The Wedding Singer gave it an immediate boost at the box office and kept it playing for months longer than it probably deserved, while the artistically superior Drowsy's sales looked awfully rough for the first few weeks until word of mouth and publicity spread.

The economic model of New York theater has changed, and the old off-Broadway economic model is basically dead. If you were a producer or investor, putting your own money into these shows and trying to make a living doing it, would you honestly feel more comfortable about investing in a daring, original work than something with some name recognition and an established track record?

If so, what are you waiting for? Make a donation to a non-profit arts group or support a struggling artist or write your own show. There's no real point in armchair quarterbacking in this industry (even if that's what most of us on the boards are best at). But don't whine at "producers" for failing to throw money at doomed projects simply because you'd like to see them.

[Funny Face]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 6:22pm

My initial reaction to the question would be a yes. Don't get me wrong, there have been great musicals adapted from movies, but with Legally Blonde, Shrek, and High Fidelity all on or making their way to Broadway, it seems a little too much. I mean, these movies were extremely popular, and didn't even come out all that long ago. It just seems like their trying to capitalize on something, and no-one actually saw creative potential or was creatively inspired to musicalize these movies. Not saying I know whether that's true or not, but that's just how it comes off to me.
However, I do see the other's points. Everyone knows the quote "There is nothing new under the sun," and it's completely true. There is nothing in art anymore that hasn't been borrowed or inspired by something else. Musicals based on books, for example, have been going on forever, although that seems to be the less offending trend for whatever reason. And it's a sad truth that musicals that don't draw from source material that people recognize and identify with are rarely succesful. Dreamgirls is the only completely original musical that pops into my head that achieved ideal success, but even that show has a pretty predictable and familiar storyline and themes that go all the way back to friggin' Cinderella. And of course, Dreamgirls is pretty much the exception, not the rule.

I don't know. I am a little ready for the trend to be over, but I'm not terribly against it. However, as soon as I see Mean Girls the musical, I can't promise that my eyes wont roll.
Updated On: 2/2/07 at 06:22 PM

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 6:42pm

The most orignal musical in years opened 12 months ago and everybody sat back and waited for it to die.

Don't support the orignal stuff, all you are going to get is movies being turned into musical.

"In my life" should still being running on Broadway, those who saw it will tell you nothing has been seen before it or since that was, that orignal.

[sondhead]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 6:43pm

"Oklahoma --> Green Grow the Lilacs
Hello Dolly --> The Matchmaker
Carousel --> Liliom
Aida --> Aida

It's not the source material, it's what you do with it that counts. Almost every classic musical you can mention has a source material; very few are original. Maybe that says something more about the dearth of American culture than it does why Broadway seems so interested in recycling."

THANK YOU! And after this morning, agreement. Good for us.

Why does everyone freak out about movies into musicals? Yes a lot of the ones being done now are commercial junk with no heart but a source is a source. Adapting a book into a musical is the exact same as adapting a movie into a musical. You change the story telling from one medium and adapt it to work its best in the other.

Let's not forget that Hairspray and (maybe) Legally Blonde are not the only good movie adaptations. Heard of "Little Shop of Horrors"? Those that think that's fluff--"A Little Night Music"?

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 6:53pm

Just wanna echo those who agree that it's not what you adapt, it's how you adapt it.

MOST musicals are based on literature, a play, or a screenplay. It's been that way since musicals began.

And I ask this: if you're sick of movies being made into musicals, are you sick of musicals being made into movies?

[Spacedog78]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 8:35pm

CATSNYrevival

decades huh? can you name some...not counting the most recent ones.

[worrell4077]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 9:41pm

Some films work fine as musicals like The Producers for instance, seeing that it's a show about producing a show, even though the show is a flop.

For me it just depends on the movie. Like, I don't care how much money it could make, I don't really care for the idea of Shrek The Musical. So it all really depends on the original source material, like there are moments in the video of Legally Blonde I saw on Broadway.com, that looked alright, but then there were moments, that I was just, Oh Dear God. I mean, who came up with a song called "Omigod you guys"?

To repeat what has been mentioned by others, there are original ideas out there. Avenue Q, The Drowsy Chaperone, Spelling Bee, Jersey Boys(I think, I don't know cause it's the band story with the band's music), and of course the upcoming Curtains.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 10:08pm

Well, Spacedog, Hazel Flagg, Fanny, Promises, Promises, 42nd Street, A Little Night Music, Sweet Charity and Carousel all come to mind. Then there are the more recent shows prior to the start of the supposed "trend" like Fame, Saturday Night Fever, Passion, Sunset Boulevard and Victor/Victoria. And there are more. To me if we were going to be tired of the trend we would have been so in the 70s.

[Spacedog78]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 10:53pm

CATSNYrevival:

I will give you that some of the ones you listed are accurate, however:

Fanny: is a 1961 film which tells the story of a young man torn between leaving his boring life for adventures at sea, or staying behind with the girl he loves. It stars Leslie Caron, Horst Buchholz, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer and Lionel Jeffries.The movie was ADAPTED by Julius J. Epstein from the MUSICAL play Fanny by S.N. Behrman, Joshua Logan and Harold Rome, which in turn had been adapted from the plays Fanny, Marius and César by Marcel Pagnol. It was directed by Logan.

42nd St WAS a musical so that doesn't count towards what I am discussing.

Carousel is a 1945 stage musical by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics) that was adapted from Ferenc Molnar's PLAY Liliom.

My point in making this thread was to simply state that creativity is lacking in some sense. I know original works are hard to come by, and not always successful, but isnt it worth the try.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:08pm

You know what I'm tired of?


Books and Plays being made into musicals. So unoriginal and cheap.

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:44pm

The real question is "Anyone tired of crappy movies being made into musicals?"