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

[jackson992]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 2:25pm

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.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 2:27pm

You have to wait until a movie opens in wide release to see how it really does. And remember that the per screen take for the Producers was considered 'solid' by Variety in select city openings, so these movies are far from doomed.

However, movie musicals like RENT and the Producers will not have WIDE appeal in the U.S. outside of larger cities as they are not mainstream, family movies or big action films.

So you do have to keep your expectations in check. They may make up for a lot in international and DVD release and at the end of the day...it is the total take that studios will consider.

I don't think you can include MATTRESS in your consideration because made-for-TV musicals are a whole different thing.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 3:21pm

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.

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 8:16pm

whoever said they should make more HBO/Showtime movie musicals was right. That's the only way I would even know Reefer Madness, and from what I understand, it definately does the show justice--a show that may not have done well on the big screen. I think this is a great way of making quality movie musicals for some of the 'smaller' shows.

Avenue Q anyone??

[bjivie2]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 10:25pm

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.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 12/22/05 at 4:35am

Movie musicals died in the 70's as cinema had become much more of the gritty reaiism style now thought of as a "golden" age ( Bullit, French Conection, Godfather) Musicals w their "even more than willing" suspension of disbelief simply became irrelevent to the times. ( I still hear guys complaining to me " why would a buncha peoople start singing & dancing in the streets?")
Funnily enough tho movie musicals returned but under the guise of cartoons. Lion King, Little Mermaid et al and using the 2 dimensional cartoon world- they worked. Moulin Rouge barely qualified to me as musical as it simply utilized existing pop music- a "Jukebox of our lives" it was familiar just sl reworked.
Chicago used the "fantasy" concept to explain the musical numbers so it worked.
Both Rent & Producers faced the same problem ( hey so did Chorus line) of an essentially stage oriented piece opened up to the "real" world w predicable inconsistantcies of style & quality. A noble effort and I'm glad they were both recorded but
as stand alone wors- they don't equal the originals. As for $$ well, I want to hear what Rent really cost- I mean no elaborate stunts, no CGI special effects, no big ticket stars, if it cost over 30 million I'd like the talk to the accountants !( Paging Mr Bloom)

[phantom8019]

Posted: 12/22/05 at 9:40am

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

This does not include marketing costs.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 12:19am

Add 10-20 million for marketing costs = 60 million- they will get the money back thru the DVD & the Cast recording. My guess is RENT will turn a profit just not a huge one.( of course w Hollywood accounting practices NO film ever really turns a profit....)

[twotrey]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 2:58am

>>>>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.