Do movies help or hurts the musical?

I have a feeling maybe RENT's release will help the show, but in the past Phantom didnt get much a drawl from the movie, and not many people I have spoken to, remember Hairspray the movie back in 80's. Do you think a movie helps or hurts a musical?

It depends on alot of factors.

The Rent movie will help the musical and give it free publicity.

Since people only saw The Producers for Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, once the movie comes out, it will hurt the musical.

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Generally, I think a movie version of a Broadway musical HELPS the stage show.

It can expose the material, even if it's been drastically adapted, to a much wider, worldwide audience. People who have never been to the theatre before might check out a movie musical at some point. Subsequently, they will have a recognition of it, when they see it playing "live" somewhere... whether it's New York or their local community theatre.

A few instances (The Wiz and A Chorus Line movies come to mind) have damaged the memory of the stage shows, but not until ACL closed its original run. Next year's revival of A Chorus Line should help that out a bit... until it closes. Then a whole new generation will have only the movie to fall back on, and we'll get a new crop saying "I don't get it," whenever A Chorus Line is mentioned as a landmark musical. And I hope we see a Broadway revival of The Wiz soon, so people can see how truly misguided and dreadful the film was. That show has definitely gotten a bad reaction, because of the movie.

HOWEVER, a theatrical musical adaptation of a theatrical straight play CAN HURT the straight play's future prospects of production.

Paul Osborn (Morning's At Seven and On Borrowed Time author) explained it to me once, a while back. If the musical adaptation is a blockbuster hit, the stage play is usually obscurred (look at "Hello, Dolly!" vs. "The Matchmaker"). If the musical version is a flop, it leaves a bitter taste in the public's mouth, and can take years before people remember that the original play was actually good.

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Updated On: 11/13/05 at 12:39 PM

Phantom did get a pretty big boost from the movie, it did over 90% capacity for a while.

I think movie buzz (whether good or bad) can actually help a Broadway musical while it's still running in New York. People want to compare the two, regardless.

It usually only HURTS the stage show after it has closed, and IF the film version was crappy. We only have the bad film to reference eventually. There's no way to compare the two, except with regional and non-professional productions. The movie version wins over the masses' perception of what the Broadway show was actually like.

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I think any film version helps at first, because it gives more exposure to the stage production (Having ads for the film of RENT doubles as advertisement for the play). But there have been instances where the film hurt the stage musical -- ANNIE being one example that comes to mind - although ANNIE really evolved into a take-your-children-to-it kind of theatre experience (it wasn't that way when it opened) and parents probably thought it was a lot cheaper to just take the kids to the movie theatre.

Wasn't Phantom down in the 70s-80s range before the film, and then it spiked back to the 90s. I know it was starting to show at TKTS more and more, and now it's barely there (well, I don't know about NOW, but it only showed once or twice a week during the summer, and the seats were aweful)

I love the one about Lucy Vaselined "Mame", LOL! It is a truth!
They even had the gall to put out posters at the time with the title "LUCY MAME". Too bad too, "Mame" would make one helluva film (and CBS knows it - just wait!)
**Cher will do Mame & Bette will play Vera**

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