Did we act too soon about movie musicals? — Page 3

That clearly isn't true. King Kong needs to make at least $400 million to be a success. Don't forget, the studios only get about half of what the box office takes in.

This is not true at all. 71 mill is a very respectable box office. Is it less than they were hoping for? Definitely yes. But it is definitely a success at the box office.

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Did anyone here get a chance to see Romance & Cigarettes? I know it played at some festivals, but I'm not sure if it'll ever have a regular release.

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I'm not totally sure if Avenue Q would work. Part of the charm of the show is seeing the actors who are using the puppets. To put that on TV would be odd, and it would also be odd not to see the performers (like Sesame Street). I think Avenue Q should stay away from the movies. However, Wicked could make a great one with the right director.

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Rent cost $40 million to make.
The Producers cost $45 million.

This does not include marketing costs.

>>>>I think they should try to market these movies as musicals. They did that with Chicago and look what happened.<<<<

Actually, the trailers for Chicago hid the music except for "All That Jazz"--which of course made it "acceptable" for trailer use since it's in a concrete performance context. Moulin Rouge! trailers also hid the music, and Phantom trailers played the music but hid any in-scene performance--which made for the choppy/montagey trailer since there wasn't much that wasn't sung in that film. Evita's trailer showed a snippet of Madonna on the balcony singing the line "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" but then relied on voiceovers to, again, hide the sung-through-ness. Rent was the first of this crop of movie musicals to actually not hide the in-character singing. The Producers uses the Chicago trap in its trailer, showing only "Springtime for Hitler"--which, of course, is in a performance context in the film. Should be interesting how DreamWorks goes with Dreamgirls when it comes time to cut a real trailer--I'm guessing showing a lot of performance-context numbers, with "And I Am Telling You..." laid over scene montages as it is, of course, the money song.

Oh, and Romance & Cigarettes is scheduled for a limited release sometime in 2006 by Sony Pictures Classics. The original plan was to release in '05 in time for awards consideration, but those plans were scrapped as soon as toxic buzz emerged from festival showings.