Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

#1

Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 8:44pm

Does anybody else think, with the recent boom of stage musicals to movie, Les Miserables would actually make a really good choice? I mean, as with Evita, it would have a lot of scenery and have, if nothing else, great scenery...

But I feel like that show could really be made into an awesome movie... better than Mamma Mia anyway.

#2

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 8:46pm

Oh god.

---

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#3

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 8:47pm

P.S. I don't even really care for the show very much....

#4

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 8:48pm

Strike 1: You started a topic with "Does anybody else think," and let's not even go any further with that.

Strike 2: This topic has been done to death. By people on this board and off (people named Cameron Mackintosh, Alan Parker, folks on usenet from like 11 years ago, etc. etc...)

---

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#5

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 8:51pm

It was just a question. I don't have time or energy to creep around on these message boards all the time looking at previous topics. I was just wondering. You don't have to answer or even read this.

#6

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 9:59pm

I would love to see a movie version, but there are also so many places where it could go wrong.

And yes, who the **** decided Mamma Mia was a musical that needed to be immortalized?

#7

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 10:01pm

theminutepast - i think someone just decided that mamma mia the movie could make money....plain and simple.

#8

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/16/07 at 10:35pm

Please God, no. Now I'm going to have nightmares of actors in Hollywood homespun marching down perfectly manicured cobblestoned streets, shaking prop farm implements in the air and screaming 'DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!"

---

I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

#9

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 12:48am

I actually think that les miserables shouldn't be made into a movie musical. It should just stay on the stage :)
I love the show but makeing it into a movie musical would just ruin it. Also I think it will be made into a long boring film.
I can't see anyone in hollywood doing justice to any of those songs

Updated On: 12/17/07 at 12:48 AM

#10

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 12:53am

Usenet via Google Groups

---

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#11

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 1:02am

Didn't the 1998 version of it bomb?? I've never seen it so I wasn't sure if they adapted it as a musical or not??

#12

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 1:05am

i think this movie musical phenom can only work with fairly new shows (Hairspray, Mamma Mia!) or more quirky shows that can allow directors free range (see Sweeney Todd, Chicago). Unfortunately, a show like Les MIz will fall into the Phantom/Rent category. They both have die hard fans who will kill any chance of commercial success for the movie. Les MIz specifically doesn't need the "movie" backdrop since the stage show is so dynamic and stimulating. I have such a hard time seeing Anne Hathaway wondering the actual streets of Paris singing On My Own, without it feeling like a direct film version of the show. There just isn't enough freedom for the director which ultimately can kill a show.

#13

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 1:18am

Didn't the 1998 version of it bomb?? I've never seen it so I wasn't sure if they adapted it as a musical or not??

Yes. No.

---

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#14

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 2:53am

There had been talks of this for years a long while ago. Now, it is where movie studios like to call development hell. Where they have ideas for movies that never came to be.


Cam Mac had spoken a while back about wanting to turn it into a move. This was the late 80's and early 90s. When there were articles saying that it was going to be made ect but just never came to be.

---

"If you try to shag my husband while I am still alive, I will shove the art of motorcycle maintenance up your rancid little Cu**. That's a good dear" Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll

#15

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 4:05am

Hasn't this show glutted the market enough??? Let it rest. Cameron sucked any life force of interest for a movie with the latest revival 5 minutes after closing... let this wondeful show rest for a while. It will be back . God knows every summer stock/regional house will be bleeding it dry for years to come.... congrats Cameron, unless you're a summer stock/regional theater enticing audiences who have seen it AD NAUSEUM, we're prety much sick of it.

#16

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 8:13am

I think Saigon would be a better choice, it its done on the scale of those big war movies.

but not Les Mis, if it comes down to economics (as all movies do) it just does not have a market.
1. it's long
2. it's too adult
3. it's depressing
4. its totally sung through

the best thing for Les Mis would to do a really good filmed "direct to DVD" of the stage version just to preserve it.

---

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27199361@N08/ Phantom at the Royal Empire Theatre

#17

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 8:26am

I once spoke to Cameron about this and he said its one he would never want to be turned in to a film as he didnt think it would translate well to the screen.

One he would love to see as a film which he has been talking about for years was Miss Saigon

---

Namo i love u but we get it already....you don't like Madonna

#18

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 8:33am

LES MIZ is my favorite show. Ever. I'd LOVE to see it on the big screen.

However...

1) It would NOT translate well and the "stunt casting" that would undoubtedly occur (Eponine, Enjolras, Cosette, Valjean and Javert would HAVE to be "names") would ruin it.

2) It'll never happen.

MISS SAIGON would translate better and is a motre likely choice.

---

"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES--- "THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS

#19

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 9:27am

Yeah, it's probably best that Les Miz stays on the stage. But Miss Saigon is screaming to be made into a movie musical since a lot of the already have a cinematic feel to them. I think if they just cut out the recitative, re-wrote it as spoken dialouge and leave the actual songs, it could work.

---

"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible

#20

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 11:58am

Les Mis would NOT sell to the general public, and RENT/ Phantom should have taught us films can't rise well above the throng with just fans.

IMO, yes it could be made into a movie-musical, but it wouldnt work (to echo others, it doesn't translate. at all) and i highly doubt it would sell well.

Miss Saigon is a much better idea.

---

"I trained as a classical actor at Juilliard. I jump at the opportunity to do classical text...But I never in a million years guessed I'd get to play Juliet!"- Michael Arden

#21

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 12:46pm

God knows every summer stock/regional house will be bleeding it dry for years to come.... congrats Cameron, unless you're a summer stock/regional theater enticing audiences who have seen it AD NAUSEUM, we're prety much sick of it.

Yet again, FreidrichVT speaks the truth.

---

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#22

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 1:00pm

I'm not sure how "Miss Saigon" would be a better idea. Even by the standards set by "Les Mis", the lyrics are pretty banal, and if anything the fact that it's a war movie would hurt it more than help it, as the box office as of late would indicate.

Granted, I don't think "Les Mis" would be a good idea either. Frankly both should just be left on the stage.

---

"Your lyrics lack subtlety! You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

#23

re: Les Miserables - a Movie Musical?

Posted: 12/17/07 at 1:19pm

I would love to see Les Mis as a movie. However, I think I would prefer that HBO or Showtime produce it so trying to appeal to a broader audience wouldn't be an issue.