Musicals made into Movies- Page 2

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Posted: 8/9/04 at 10:59am

I don't think that the Zeta-Jones-Zellwegger-Gere-Latifah combination was the only way to go for Chicago (especially Gere), but Goldie Hawn, Madonna, and Rosie O' Donnell would have been disasterous.

Mendes is still set to do Sweeney Todd, but is currently starting on a Gulf War I movie called Jarheads, I think. As always, when it comes to movies in pre-production, you can't believe anything until there's a set start date, or better yet when filming starts. And even then, things can change. I think Mendes is a good choice for the project, but we really shouldn't look forward to it too much. We'll most likely be let down. Look how long Rent has been stuck in Development Hell- it's on its third director now, isn't it?

That said, I think Sweeney could make an amazing movie, though it'll never be as mainstream as Chicago. I actually thought Moulin Rouge and Chicago would do for musical movies what X-Men did for comic movies- bring them back from the margins and into the mainstream. But I should have known better. Superhero comic flicks, after all, are just a variation on the ever-popular action genre. They're not really as risky as musicals, and the studios know it. Not to mention that finding actors who can act and fly around in harnesses is a lot easier than finding actors who can act and sing. So while crappy comic movies can be made without killing the genre, every single musical has to be a hit for the next one to be produced. Let's hope Phantom doesn't break the chain.