rattleNwoolypenguin said: "
Some Like it Hot was an IP though. I definitely think some people thought “how do you improve upon the classic movie?” and stayed home too.
I heard it was wonderful but maybe this is not what audiences want to see.
It feels like when Hollywood made the Hello Dolly movie. You have to take the temperature of your audience. The elderly rich New Yorker generation is dying, is it worth it to keep mounting the “Welcome to New York Big Band musical” still?"
It is an IP yes. But I specifically said "meaningful IP". Some Like it Hot has basically zero current cultural cache as a brand right now. So it is not a meaningful IP to mass audiences. Some people might have thought that the movie couldn't be improved upon, but I guarantee the largest percentage of potential ticket buyers either have never seen the film or saw it long ago and do not carry a strong attachment/memory for it.
SLIH is styled after classic musicals, but those have only been hits recently when they featured mega stars. (Bette in Hello Dolly = Hit. Hugh Jackman in Music Man = Hit. A bunch of talented Bway folks in Carousel = Flop).
Musicals of this style also demand a large ensemble, and this one also features a pretty sizable orchestra. Along with several other rising costs for key elements, that means an astronomical budget. I could go on about how scary the current economics of Broadway are but that would be a whole new thread...but suffice to say that the fact that a musical like this needs a $900K per week breakeven point should concern everyone who enjoys originals musicals. Broadway is becoming untenable for new musicals that are not mega hits out of the gate. Given their costs, SLIH would have needed to become that rare kind of lightning-in-a-bottle success in order to truly succeed in the long run, it's what everyone is forced to chase now. In reality, those costs mean they either needed a musical based on an IP with true cultural resonance, or cast a major box office draw in one of the lead roles.