why do movies into musicals keep getting made?

that other post shows how many of them fail and its amazing.

Funny how so few movie musicals did well and yet people still keep trying their darndest to produce them.
whats the definition of insanity again?

"Bring it on the Musical"? Didn't we just try that when it was called Legally Blonde? And didn't that show lose about 12 million dollars?
Or "clueless the musical"? or "Heathers the musical"? Come on people, its like writers and producers are just throwing things at a dart board hoping that one sticks. Why not take some time and create something. Piazza took Guettal 9 years.
Even ROA was 5 years in the making. Everyone just slow down and put some time into these things.
Memphis took 6 years and it still isn't very good. Remember when they put up good vibrations in a year and a half with John carraffa helming it? That worked out wonderfully well.

TAKE YOUR TIME! a multi-million dollar investment doesn't need to be rushed kiddies. I think there would be better things on broadway if people weren't in a rush to try and make gobs of money off their artistic achievement.

and producers, Please stop with the movie musicals soon. go to NAMT or NYMF or the Fringe and see some original stuff.

Yes I like ROA but i also LOVE urinetown which is original for all those people who were about to jump down my back about how ROA isn't original. I am not myopic in my tastes.

Who cares where the source material comes from as long as it's done well. Movies, Books, or whatever.

And despite your theory that some of these musicals happen overnight - they don't. Some have been in development for several years. They've only recently gotten press.



my .02

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Not only had the stage musical always borrowed liberally from other mediums (it's the mediums that have changed over time), but I think you'll find that musicals based on movies don't necessarily fail at a higher rate than musicals based on anything else.

I completely agree that it's insulting and stupid to have producers just flipping through pages of film rights to pick a project, but for those who have a genuine love for a particular story, movies can be great source material. As Craig said, it's all about how well it's done.

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Mister Matt. True

But that's also true in other mediums

TV Shows (spinoffs), Movies and even book authors try to immediately capitalize on success with sequels, etc.

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Right. That's sort of what I meant by "commercial entertainment". It exists in virtually every form of media.

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OMG you guys, please stop saying "mediums". It's causing me physical pain.

And while we're at it, can we put out a plea for people to stop turning plays into musicals? There's absolutely NO reason to set the most lamentable tragedy of two young Italians in '50s New York. Even that English playwright who wrote about 'em buggered up the timeline, making everything happen implausibly fast. He's such a hack, most of his plays were ripped off from other things. Just leave everything exactly as it is! That's the point of art, right?!

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They keep getting made for the same reason that police procedurals keep getting made as TV series -- although a number of them don't do well, there are some very visible successes.

From 2001 to 2005, four of the five Tony winners for Best Musical were movie adaptations (The Producers, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hairspray, and Spamalot), as was last year's winner, Billy Elliot, and the cash cow called The Lion King. Although you could argue about whether those shows deserved to win, those shows (along with Mamma Mia) are among the most financially successful shows of the decade. That type of success helps new potential movies-turned-into-musicals get made. I'm not sure it's any more complicated than that.

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There's absolutely NO reason to set the most lamentable tragedy of two young Italians in '50s New York.

Not to mention how the ending was butchered. Or NOT butchered, shall we say. It's not even a faithful adaptation. I honestly don't understand how anyone could ever enjoy such a disrespectful hack job.

Don't even get me started on I Am a Camera: The Musical! Unoriginal garbage!

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Passion is based on a movie.

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There's a difference between an author who's compelled to musicalize a film because of an original take on it...and some hack who's looking for a tried-and-true property to repackage as a musical to get rich.

And just because someone "can" make a musical, it doesn't mean they know how to. Hacks are everywhere.

Movies made into musicals already have the title which helps them to do better than new shows that no one has heard of in some case. Even if a new show is better, a movie musical is more popular for tourists.

They're not all bad. It's just like regular movies- you see more bad ones than good get released. Broadway is similar, but on a much smaller scale.

I myself have been working on a draft of a musical version of Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" movie for some years now, constantly refining it, rewriting it, and learning from the mistakes of other shows. Yes, it's a movie into a musical. Yes, the name will help to sell it if it gets produced. But I'm trying my hardest not to make it a dashed-off sort of thing, since I saw real theatrical potential in the story and characters for years.

Of course, I'm not a famous and successful Broadway composer or librettist thrown into a think-tank of successful and recognizable Broadway movers and shakers, like Shrek's creative team. I'm just some guy who wants to write it, and thinks he can do it. Maybe that makes things different, I don't know. I just hope that by the time I have a finished workshop score and demo disc, Universal, Touchstone and their associates won't say "You're not famous, go home."