Movie Musicals following Dreamgirls success?- Page 4

[Kringas]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 12:12pm

Here's one:


Posted by
Michael Bennett
re: Sweeney Todd Movie
Posted On: 6/13/06 at 09:28 AM

Having read that John Logan screenplay, I can tell you that the "feel" of the film is more intimate and less overtly "operatic" -- whoever plays SWEENEY, be he Depp or somebody else, isn't going to have to sing the role like George Hearn or even Michael Cerveris, and a lot of the more over the top musical sequences like "Epiphany" have largely been turned into dialogue.

Which makes sense. You can't have people singing that stuff like they are at the Met, in a realistic movie where there are actually ceilings and floors and a tiny cramped barbershop - it would be absurd.

And of course - look for Helena Bonham Carter to appear in this movie, if not as Lovett, as the Beggar Woman.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?page=2&thread=899463&boardname=bway

[worrell4077]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 3:31pm

"I think Tim Burton is wrong for Sweeney Todd--but I have to admit at the least I'm interested to see what he does with it."

Why is Burton wrong for Sweeney? Is it just because he hasn't done a full fledge movie musical?

I think that Sweeney is right up Burton's alley and that he'll do a great job with it. Besides, Burton's been attached to direct since the early 90s, but then he dropped out and Sam Mendes took over, but then Burton came back into the mix.

[RadiGal2]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 3:48pm

Sam needs to get busy with making Cabaret into a movie -- asap.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for that matter.. never cease to amaze me; if anyone can make it work and honor the integrity of it all it's them...

[ClumsyDude15]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 5:48pm

HAIRSPRAY already has John Travolta out there some-what promoting it. Last night on Leno, they spoke about it
And showed a picture of him as Edna.

Plus, that bit at the Oscars helped as well.
Hairspray has potenital to be big.
And will most likely.

I don't know SWEENEY well.
But, with the words "Johnny Depp"
they can literally do no wrong
Many girls I know of in my current cast of Brigadoon
Adore Depp and will see ANYTHING he's in.
I have no doubt SWEENEY will make money.

[bk]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 6:36pm

Just to put a capper on it: Dreamgirls is a success, either minor or major, to those who wish to perceive it so. Those who liked rather than loved it, and those who loved and adored every minute of it. I thought it was okay - Mr. Condon was in attendance at the DGA screeing I attended, and he basically sat there and said that he was pandering to today's audiences, trying to "ease" them into the songs that were clearly plot songs. That's why the Effie song is almost shot as a performance number, and that, IMO, is the film's undoing. If you're doing a musical, you either trust the genre or you pander to what is perceived as today's audiences. The fact is, if you have passion and you are really good at what you do and you trust your material, then the audience (no matter what the pundits say) will go wherever you want them to go. You just have to establish the rules from frame one and then not deviate from them. You cannot have it both ways.

I've watched young people watch the films of The Music Man, or The Sound Of Music, or West Side Story - and you know what? They never have a problem with people breaking out into song. They just accept it because that's the world they've been presented and they "get" it. The minute you start pandering to audiences or generations or demographics, you basically come out with crap, and that's why the movie business is in the state it's in, and that's why musical theater is beginning to be in the state IT'S in.

But the one thing that cannot be refuted at this point in time, is that Dreamgirls is a financial failure.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 9:37pm

>> Here's one:

Now that wasnt so difficult, was it?

I still have my doubts that Sondheim would allow something as vital as "Epiphany" to be cut, but time will tell.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 10:16pm

SeanMartin--I think your perception of Mr. Sondheim's "god like" involvement in this project is skewed.

Writers very rarely have creative control over anything, once a property is optioned. Studios will very rarely allow it... only in rare cases when a property is SO hot that they can't get it any other way. This would not be the case with "Sweeney Todd."

The rights to this musical were licenced and paid for. Sondheim and Wheeler agreed to a price, and the studio might have agreed to some MINOR contingencies. The rights would be all about revenues from the film, plus home video rights, recording rights, etc. It's mostly about profits from the property.

But creative control is the studio's and whatever agreement they have worked out with Tim Burton. They hired Sondheim to work on this project to adapt lyrics and music as needed and requested throughout preproduction, production and post-production... he is NOT calling the shots.

Only someone like J.K. Rowling has creative approval over their optioned film properties. And Warner Bros. has been extremely relieved that she has kept mostly to the sidelines.

So thinking that Sondheim "allowed" or "didn't allow" certain things to be cut, changed, enhanced, or rearranged is an inaccurate perception on your part.

They, mostly out of creative COURTESY, not out of legal obligation, have consulted him on all artistic decisions. Whether or not they listen to his opinions and professional advice is THEIR call, not his.

This would be true with nearly all writers today with licensed properties, no matter how famous or revered. Keep that in mind when you're disappointed at the cutting of "Epiphany" and other numbers from the stage show.

Posted: 2/28/07 at 10:26pm

Hahah I'll let it go I swear--but aren't most movies marketed nowadays with the knowledge that the eventual DVD release will help them break even/turn a profit? Anyway I get the feeling it did better than some pundits hoped but not quite as well as expected--but I think it does show Hollywood that there is some interest still out there in musicals. (earlier in this thread someone said it got mixed to negative reviews--THAT I think can be proved as wrong with a look at the major reviews, either on your own or on a site like rotten tomatoes or metacritic--it did get some bad reviews and some middling but the avergae of good reviews is very high when you compare it to most films this year)

As for Sweeney's script--I read a while back re the cuts about Green Finch and Kiss Me (one of my faves) being cut in the early draft of the script but the same source (this was prob from the SOndheim forum so of course i'm not taking it as necesarily true--or necesarily false) said their sources said that many of these cuts were going back into the production script so weren't necesarily going to happen.

Sondheim himself has expressed pleasure with the script and said something like "I have no probs changing some of my music to suit the needs of the score" which of course means nothing to this argument :P However there is a person on the forum who claims to be in the chorus for the recordings of the film and said that they recorded God That's Good a bit over a week ago--so it sounds like it's in

Bk-- I agree with you spot on about the trouble with COndon (who, I'll say it again I think has the potential to be an amazing director but more from his earlier films) and his directing in Dreamgirls. For the record few people where I saw the movie, or my friends, knew anything abotu Dreamgirls being a Broadway show in the past (Chicago people knew more about because the show is still on stage in London and New York--or was when the movie came out and was touring)--at the Dreamgirls movie some girls behind me literally kept on asking each other "What? is this a musical?!?" and I heard one even after it was over and she wa walking out saying "so was that a musical??" (WTF?!) Anyway I think it did throw people that most of the songs were done as some sort of performance but then you'd have snatches (the first I remember is the street scene bit of Bad Side) where they sing in standard musical style--I think Condon shoulda figured out a way to have it all on stage/studio or else been more consistant.

Worrel said:"I think that Sweeney is right up Burton's alley and that he'll do a great job with it. Besides, Burton's been attached to direct since the early 90s, but then he dropped out and Sam Mendes took over, but then Burton came back into the mix"

This prob is the wrong thread for such arguments but... First I wanna say while I think the "cult of Burton" overates his style and movies a bit, I also think he's a great visual director, and for a while was one of my favorites--and I'd always go out of my way to see one of his movies.

I don't see why Sweeney is necesarily right up Burton's alley though--superficially I think peopel see it that way--the "Gothic light approach filled with dark humour". However I can't think of any Burton work where he scuessfully married black comedy, gothic archness with genuinely moving pathos in the Grand Guignol style Sweney on stagew does--some coudl say Edward Scissorhands but the characters in that are on the level (and quite rightly so) of a fairy tale. I'm scares of Sweeney not working on, for me, its greatest level, the true tragedy of the story--though I have no doubt it will work on at least some of its other levels under Burton.

I'm not worried abotu Burton working on a musical--his movies are often very reliant on music anyway (and he did co-direct the sorta musical Corpse Bride, though he didn't direct the more successully musical Nightmare Before Christmas even if nearly everyone likes to give him credit over Selick for that--pet peave of mine)


While a much more inconsistant director, out of major names I was actually kinda hoping for Neil Jordan--he would be dream choice for the project and I think could ahandle the scope of Sweeney better. However I stnad by what I said that at least with Burton (unless this proves ot be an exception like his plain dull Planet of the APes remake) I expect to find his film approach to Sweeney *interesting* as a piece of cinema.

E
Updated On: 2/28/07 at 10:26 PM

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 10:45pm

>> So thinking that Sondheim "allowed" or "didn't allow" certain things to be cut, changed, enhanced, or rearranged is an inaccurate perception on your part.

Studios get only the rights they *pay* for. Unless they've given Mr. Sondheim a rather phenomnal amount of cash for the right to mess with what is *his* property, I'd say I'm on safer ground in my thinking than you are. Further to my case, Sondheim has always been known as something of a control freak, and I dont think it takes much to see that, after two unmitigated disasters, he would indeed exercise every bit of control he can over his work.

As Eric's post demonstrates, right now there is more rumour and speculation than anything else. People who "claim" to have read the script and people who "claim" tp have been part of the recording session... sorry, but it's all damn tiresome. So you have your guesses, and I'll have mine, and we'll leave it at that until the film actually comes out.

But I'm still betting that there will be no wholesale slashing of this score.

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 9:13am

Now that wasnt so difficult, was it?

Nope, not at all. Feel free to dial down that condescension at any time.

[Fan2]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 9:44am

Check this out:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/02/depp_for_best_a.php

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 9:47am

Man, this is starting even earlier than the Dreamgirls hype. He's committed, what, maybe five minutes of his performance to film already?

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 9:50am

He's liable to be hated for this even more than Beyonce!

Nah...

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 9:53am

No one is more worthy of hate than Beyonce. All the world's evils can be traced to her.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 10:02am

>> Feel free to dial down that condescension at any time.

If the spirit moves me, grasshopper.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 10:48am

"I've watched young people watch the films of The Music Man, or The Sound Of Music, or West Side Story - and you know what? They never have a problem with people breaking out into song. They just accept it because that's the world they've been presented and they "get" it."

I think part of the problem is that studios aren't marketing these films as musicals. Watching the trailers to ANY of the recent movie musicals, not one indicates they are musicals. RENT just wasn't adapted well and its cast was too old, Phantom wasn't camp enough when it needed to be, and it looked too fake; The Producers was way too fake and stagey...it was the stage show on film and was poorly advertised (and it got lost in Harry Potter, Narnia and RENT).

[Fosse76]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 10:55am

"Studios get only the rights they *pay* for. Unless they've given Mr. Sondheim a rather phenomnal amount of cash for the right to mess with what is *his* property, I'd say I'm on safer ground in my thinking than you are. "

No no and no. When a film mogul (it's not always a studio) purchases the rights to a property, the seller is essentially giving up all claims to authorship to the FILM property. With rare exceptions do they retain any sort of control. JK Rowling, for example, had creative control mainly because the series of books isn't finished and she didn't want the films to contradict the books. P.L. Travers wouldn't sell the rights without creative control, but Disney was savy enough to give her what may have seemed like a lot but actually was very little. It's very unlikely that Sondheim has any control over the movie. It seemed clear from all the articles at the time of the Sweeney film announcement that Sondheim has absolutley no control over anything in the film.

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 10:57am

Don't forget, though. He's read between the lines.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 11:24am

SWEENEY TODD
HAIRSPRAY
MAMMA MIA!

'nuff said.

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 11:35am

Huh?

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 1:47pm

>> When a film mogul (it's not always a studio) purchases the rights to a property, the seller is essentially giving up all claims to authorship to the FILM property

Please note: when a film mogul purchases the rights. If you think it's as easy as walking into a store and buying a can of soda, you really dont know much about the arcane world of entertainment law. If someone is buying all rights to do with a property as he pleases, he's paying a whale of a lot for that privilege.

And consider Sondheim's personality. He *is* a control freak. Do you *honestly* think he'd allow his lawyers to just blithely sell off his work like that? Not a chance.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 5:54pm

"And consider Sondheim's personality. He *is* a control freak. Do you *honestly* think he'd allow his lawyers to just blithely sell off his work like that? Not a chance."


I have to ask, SeanMartin... what world are you living in?

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 5:57pm

OK, have you people seen a little thing called A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC? And how about the two GYPSY films? And the Oscar-winning(yet not necessarily loved by Sondheim) WEST SIDE STORY?
SWEENEY TODD is not HARRY POTTER or THE DA VINCI CODE, it's not a piece that a million studios were fighting over, so I doubt Sondheim has much of a say in what goes or doesn't go in the film.

Updated On: 3/1/07 at 05:57 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 5:57pm

Silly best12bars, with your elitest inside sources. Read between the lines!

Updated On: 3/1/07 at 05:57 PM

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/1/07 at 5:59pm

The real one, b12b. I'm not casting aspersions on Mr. Sondheim. This is just what he is.

I daresay this board has tons of people who will swear they know him personally and of course he's not anything like that. Well, sorry, but I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the man during the days of getting investors for INTO THE WOODS. He's very charming, a wonderful conversationalist, and God knows an incredible talent. But he's also a control freak.