New Les Mis Footage - including singing!- Page 2
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/05
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#25
Posted: 9/20/12 at 1:44pm
winston89, Evita opened in 704 theaters with $8.4 million and placed in the number 2 spot at the box office its opening weekend, it did well with critics and made money. I am curious about how you figure Evita is the case and point on audiences not being willing to sit through a sung-through movie musical.
I realize that $8.4 million is not a lot by today's standards for an opening weekend, but (in the suburbs of Chicago at least) multiplexes were just beginning to take over the one or two screen theaters, and tickets were about $3.50. It seems like it did rather well. Phantom is very nearly sung-through, and I think it does a better job at making your very valid point.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#26
Posted: 9/20/12 at 1:51pm
Has it been discussed that I Dreamed a Dream seems to have shifted time from the stage show to the movie.
If I'm not mistaken, she's singing it AFTER her hair has been cut, which suggests it takes place after Lovely Ladies, not before. I think it's a good shift and explains why it's a more 'beat down' version of the song than what's in the stage show.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#27
Posted: 9/20/12 at 1:51pmSung-through is a tough sell, I'm not going to deny it, but you know what? I'm going to put out my personal theory - those failed movie musicals folks are so worried about Les Miserables following were not very good. To put it kindly. Which doesn't guarantee your failure at the box office, of course, any more than being good means you'll be watched, but it certainly is a halfway decent explanation.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#28
Posted: 9/20/12 at 1:53pmThis looks great...can't wait to see it!
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#29
Posted: 9/20/12 at 2:01pmThis looks fantastic. Wow.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#30
Posted: 9/20/12 at 3:36pmHave to echo the positive comments here. Obviously, it's a massive undertaking, but it seems they're going about this in a good direction. And Anne's number nearly made me cry from the brief snippets of it.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#31
Posted: 9/20/12 at 3:56pm
I agree this looks very exciting and potentially great.
Funny how many crushes there seem to be for Eddie, yet I recall how many on bww found his casting so off at first because he wasn't their idea of a matinee idol. I couldn't understand that then and I certainly don't now.
"However, if they are, can a film audience sit through close to two hours (maybe two hours and change) of singing?"
This wouldn't be the first sung through musical movie.
Tommy; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Phantom of the Opera come to mind. At least the first two made money. Umbrellas is a very acclaimed movie and Tommy isn't bad.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#32
Posted: 9/20/12 at 4:00pmHugh's interpretation and execution of the soliloquy gave me CHILLS.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#34
Posted: 9/20/12 at 4:11pm
Amanda Seyfried sounded pretty but IMO weak on the actual high notes. From the fluttering of her vibrato, she sounded like she had poor breath support. IMO, she sounds better than Emmy Rossum, but worse than Jayne Wisener.
I'm withholding full judgment until I hear her sustained C6, though.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/27/12
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#35
Posted: 9/20/12 at 4:22pm
Funny how many crushes there seem to be for Eddie, yet I recall how many on bww found his casting so off at first because he wasn't their idea of a matinee idol. I couldn't understand that then and I certainly don't now.
I wasn't here then, or I would have been adamant in my support of Eddie's charm. The man has a smile to light up lives and cheekbones for days.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#36
Posted: 9/20/12 at 5:01pm
Here's Russell Crowe singing in the Australian production of Rocky Horror - 1988.
Hot Patootie!
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/8/05
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#37
Posted: 9/20/12 at 5:04pmHah, I was waiting for Spork's assessment.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#38
Posted: 9/20/12 at 5:35pm
I hope it was up to your standards, Mr. Midwest. 
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#39
Posted: 9/20/12 at 6:11pm
Looks like Greenwich Palace has been used for the location filming.
Presumably before it became an Olympic venue.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#40
Posted: 9/20/12 at 6:17pm
They tried to make Phantom slightly less sung through (which was idiotic--having lyrics spoken as dialogue, etc), which I thought was kinda meant to be a concession to audiences.
I thought initially the screenwriter hired for Les Miz said that there WOULD be dialogue to help condense the length? I'm glad if that's not the case...
For the record, Phantom was budgeted at $70 mill (so add probably another $20 mill to that for promotion if the usual standard is to be believed). It made just around $50 mill domestically, but $100 mill internationally, so was a hit overall.
Evita, a decade earlier (so inflation may make a diff) was budgeted at $55 mill, and made $50 mill domestically, and again just over $100 mill internationally.
Dreamgirls doesn't have any budget info I can find (I would think around $70 mill), and the opposite happened. It made $103 mill domestically, but $51 internationally.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#41
Posted: 9/20/12 at 6:28pm
"As said, there will be *bits* of dialogue, but nothing like what they tried to do with Phantom and Rent, taking recitative and trying to make it sound like dialogue. Also, Evita's problem wasn't that it was wall to wall music."
Ah, that makes sense. I still think these kinds of shows (add Dreamgirls, even if it's very different, to the mix) work better through sung. But that doesn't sound awful. However, I actually think modern audiences WOULD take to a through sung film more (the dialogue/song shows on film that have been the biggest film hits recently tend to be ones where the songs are done in a campy, self aware way like Hairspray, or even Little Shop, or where they're fantasy like Chicago). Withthrough sung shows the audience takes ten minutes to adjust, and then can handle it on film--everyone knows music videos (albeit not quite that long).
The featurette looks promising. I just hope the filming we saw was just to get a few closeups--if Hugh Jackman actually sings his whole sololoquy directed talking RIGHT to the camera, I might find that hard to take...
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#42
Posted: 9/20/12 at 6:31pmI hope this really does well. In my opinion, we haven't had a good movie musical since DREAMGIRLS. That being said, I'm happy that we've had so many musicals in the last the years: CHICAGO, HAIRSPRAY, MAMMA MIA, RENT, THE PRODUCERS, ROCK OF AGES, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, NINE, and SWEENEY TODD. So thank you, MOULIN ROUGE and CHICAGO for bringing back the movie musical!
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#43
Posted: 9/20/12 at 6:36pmI was briefly concerned that, since after Chicago a number of high profile movie musicals have not only underperformed, but bombed, that Hollywood would quickly get scared off again. Glad that hasn't seemed to have happened and (someone) realizes that it depends on the quality of the actual movie.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#44
Posted: 9/20/12 at 7:13pm
Why no Russell Crowe singing? I get that HBC and SBC had some scheduling conflict so their stuff might not be ready, but what would be the reason to keep Russell's vocals under wraps? Might they not be as strong as we have all been led to believe?
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/1/09
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#45
Posted: 9/20/12 at 8:57pmWho want to hear acting in a musical? Ugh.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#46
Posted: 9/20/12 at 11:16pm*Confused*. I usually like to hear acting in the singing of musicals...
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#47
Posted: 9/21/12 at 1:27amI was sure that this movie with such a Hollywood cast was going to seriously degrade the material, but after watching that clip it looks absolutely spectacular. As for Anne's IDAD, I don't see how you can listen to that and not understand it. There is a definite difference between film and stage and while her interpretation would sound weak and too feeble on stage, a fully belted version on film would be laughable and overdramatic. She's definitely taking the healthy approach.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#48
Posted: 9/21/12 at 2:24am
I forget who asked, but to answer the question about the new awards schedule:
The same day Les Miz announced that they were pushing back the release date from December 14 to December 25, the Academy Awards announced that nomination ballots would be due on January 3 with the nominations announced January 10. It could hurt the movie's chances if not many will have seen the movie by the time ballots are distributed and collected.
New Les Mis Footage - including singing!#49
Posted: 9/21/12 at 3:41amWhile studios get nervous about doing so, in the era of internet downloads, couldn't they send out screeners before?
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