New Merrily Pro-Shot? - Page 5

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 12:47pm

This will be in Netflix early 2026.

[Georgeanddot2]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 12:51pm

I'll probably watch this when it hits streaming, but I have little to no interest in any production of Merrily without Hills of Tomorrow and High Schoolers in neon T-shirts. I still don't think the original production had any issues with it. The audience was the problem.

[schubox]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 2:39pm

Has there been any word if this will eventually be available for purchase or on a streaming sight at some point?

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 3:03pm

Netflix 

[DramaTeach]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 4:56pm

CoffeeBreak said: "Netflix"

Is that a guess, a question, or a factual response?

[Georgeanddot2]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 4:59pm

DramaTeach said: "CoffeeBreak said: "Netflix"

Is that a guess, a question, or a factual response?"

I forgot how needlessly bitchy everyone is on here lol.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 7:07pm

Georgeanddot2 said: "DramaTeach said: "CoffeeBreak said: "Netflix"

Is that a guess, a question, or a factual response?"

I forgot how needlessly bitchy everyone is on here lol."

…you got banned for repeatedly using homophobic slurs. 

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 7:44pm

I adored this production on stage and thought the film capture was pretty much perfect. A pleasure to see that trio singing Sondheim's brilliant score again

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/7/25 at 8:43pm

SkidRow82 said: "Maybe, because a traditional pro-shot of this exact production already exists with the London cast, they wanted a way to differentiate this version. So, they opted for a more "this is a real film" approach…"

In the interview with Maria Friedman I linked, that's exactly it.  But I still wonder--like why have applause at the end but no footage of the bows?

[bear882]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 5:14am

The strengths of the combination film/pro shot are the leading trio, who made the closeups work for them. But as a big fan of the revival, I didn’t think the film worked nearly as well as the stage version. I am glad it exists, but the insistence on so many tight closeups - even of the ensemble during the transitions - felt silly. It seemed like Friedman took a perfectly reasonable idea and then overdid it to the film’s detriment.

The movie emphasized the flaws of the revival and the underlying material. I didn’t mind Krystal Joy Brown’s Gussie in the theater - she was an outsized character who was there to drive parts of the plot - and to illustrate Frank’s flaws. In the film, Gussie’s character feels more ludicrous, mostly a campy villain who is way too transparent.

Merrily We Roll Along was my favorite revival when I saw it in October 2023, so perhaps some disappointment was inevitable. But I started to wonder things like whether Jonathan Groff might have been a little too successful in humanizing Frank. Is the main trio just a little too nice? Is the story just too simplistic? Did Frank’s adorable child really need to be in that last transition? (Father and son had no relationship, after all.) The final moments of the show felt so haunting and sad in the theater. The film didn’t have the same impact.

[caitlinette]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:44pm

I walked in not knowing the show at all, and loved it, but was very puzzled by Gussie. I’m not sure if it was the actress, the way the role is written, the directing, or a combination of both, but she came off as a total caricature, almost like a Sally Bowles type. It felt quite incongruent with the rest of the production. On another note, why did they not try to change up Mary or Charley’s  looked throughout the show? Gussie went through so many changes. You could easily track her throughout time, but the others looked virtually the same decade to decade, with no fashion (or hair) changes at all.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 11:33pm

caitlinette said: "I walked in not knowing the show at all, and loved it, but was very puzzled by Gussie. I’m not sure if it was the actress, the way the role is written, the directing, or a combination of both, but she came off as a total caricature, almost like a Sally Bowlestype. It felt quite incongruent with the rest of the production. On another note, whydid they not try to change up Mary or Charley’slooked throughout the show? Gussie went through so many changes. You could easily track her throughout time, but the others looked virtually the same decade to decade, with no fashion (or hair) changes at all."

I mean they do give Mary that odd/awful party dress in Act II but I see your point.  I think with Gussie you're meant to see her extreme transformation from Joe's more mousy (for lack of a better word) assistant to a STAHR.  I do think she's TOO caricatured, and Maria Friedman seems to bring that out all the more in this staging compared to the proshot we have of this production from 2013 London with its original cast.

One of the things (among many) that I don't think is improved in the current revised Merrily book is expanding Gussie's part, and making her a full on femme fatale type who Frank simply can't resist (done, in part I think, to make Frank's later decisions more sympathetic to audiences...)

[Springtime]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 11:45pm

Krystal Joy Brown (Gussie) has expressed her disappointment with her role in the film.

Her post on Threads: 

Watching the film now…wow, I am disembodied voice a lot…. You really miss “the work” 🤦🏾‍♀️ woof. Great. I barely finish a sentence on camera which is devastating as an artist. Wow. I am still very proud of my work because what moments the director allowed me to keep in her edit, I did the best I could with. I mourn the loss of the deep complexity of #Gussie.

Updated On: 12/8/25 at 11:45 PM

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 12:22am

The direction and editing are sh*t, but the performance is still the performance. I couldn't stand the overacting at NYTW, but by the third of fourth time I saw the show, I accepted Gussie (and Krystal's performance) for the creation/artifice she is, as referenced by the line, "one day, I just made myself up, and now I never change."

Updated On: 12/9/25 at 12:22 AM

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 9:49am

Gussie in the movie reminded me of Eartha Kitt

[Ensemble1711444445]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 10:00am

Sadly those release numbers are bad. It is too bad, no matter what the opinion is of the film creatively it shows a lack of audience for this kind of capture going forward.  Other shows will be harder to sell to streamers. I was hopeful about this one with the star power and critical acclaim of the show. 

Updated On: 12/9/25 at 10:00 AM

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 1:47pm

I'll admit, I had no idea this was coming out when it did. While I couldn't hide from all the Waitress ads, I rarely saw them for this one. Maybe because it was smack dab in the middle of the Wicked/Avatar/Zooptopia hype cycle?

[bear882]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 3:11pm

Several factors about the box office:

- Release times were limited and spotty. I wasn’t surprised it was only booked for a week and in smaller theaters in multiplexes in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was a little surprised that, at most, there were two showings per day. There was often just one. And compared to other areas in the country, where it wasn’t available at all, this was a lot. 

- There wasn’t really much promotion aside from a few chat show appearances by the main trio.

- The folks releasing this treated it like a specialty item, of interest only to a small number of people. They’re probably right. We never got a true test of Hamilton’s box office appeal as a film but I suspect even that wouldn’t have done as well as Disney hoped when they bought it.

- It’s hard enough for movies to make much of a dent at the box office. Musical proshots are always going to a tough sell, no matter how much they tried to make this one look more like a movie. (And it didn’t really work anyway. It was still shot on a stage and that was obvious.)

[schubox]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 5:52pm

Yeah I could see this doing well on Netflix and them buying future pro shots. If anything pro shots seem to be happening more and more regularly 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 7:07pm

And here I thought 1.3 mill was actually pretty good?  It only played one night here....  (Maybe I'm just putting it beside how badly Kiss of the Spider Woman did...)

Updated On: 12/9/25 at 07:07 PM

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 12/9/25 at 9:31pm

I adore this show and adored this production, so I was excited to catch this today. While I'm firmly in the boat that the editing and camera work was largely disappointing, I still thought the performances (which made this production special) shined through. Groff and Radcliffe were the MVPs, in my eyes, and the chemistry between the three leads is as palpable on screen as it was in the theatre. I remember not being too fond of Krystal Joy Brown's Gussie at NYTW but found that her performance grew on me during my Broadway viewings, and wasn't as put off at how she came across here as others seem to be. I just wish Friedman had allowed the piece to breath a bit more on film - some of those close-ups were a bit claustrophobic.

Sadly, the experience was spoiled by some audience members, namely a pair (who arrived late, two songs in!) who spent much of the film crinkling their popcorn bags, "whispering" to each other their thoughts and updates about the various cast members ("He's currently in Little Shop!" "She's doing Spelling Bee now!"), and loudly laughing at every mildly funny line in a way that was so over-the-top it bordered on absurd. I'm not usually one to get too rankled by audience behavior, but this was pick me/main character energy to the highest degree and consistently drew my attention away from what was happening on screen. To the two girls sitting in the back of the auditorium at this afternoon's showing at the 34th Street AMC, I hope you had a good time, because you certainly ruined mine.

[blaxx]

Posted: 12/11/25 at 1:16am

I can't believe no one asked Katie Rose Clarke to tone down her Glinda. On camera it's atrocious, she's practically doing Popular, hair toss and all, awfully distracting.

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 12/11/25 at 12:02pm

Krystal Joy Brown seems pretty miffed by this pro-shot. Her post on social media and her comments therein are quite harsh.

[caitlinette]

Posted: 12/11/25 at 5:06pm

blaxx said: "I can't believe no one asked Katie Rose Clarke to tone down her Glinda. On camera it's atrocious, she's practically doing Popular, hair toss and all, awfully distracting."

I noticed that too. All I saw was Glinda. 

[tomorrowBIGLITES]

Posted: 12/11/25 at 11:17pm

I think this is an “act two is better than act one” show.