Patti LuPone doesn’t like movie musicals. On a 2017 episode of Andy Cohen’s talk show Watch What Happens Live, the legendary actress was asked about the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables – having originated the role of Fantine in the West End, she knew a thing or two about the show. There’s a brief pause to call Madonna “dead behind the eyes” in Evita before she says, “I don’t know why people assume they can do musicals or make movie musicals without ever having been involved with the process of making a musical.”
Movie musicals of the 21st century are a shadow of their former selves. In these risk-averse times, the focus is on adaptations from the stage with bankable stars at the helm – think Chicago, Into The Woods and Mamma Mia. But since 2020, even that’s been slimmed down. Musicals aren’t even marketed as musicals, lest anyone feel tricked into watching one. The movie musical is in dire need of resuscitation.
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From 2010 until 2019, movie musicals had occasional critical and commercial success. Studios stuck to bankable options from theatre: Les Misérables made $435m at the box office, earning enormous acclaim (though not from Patti LuPone) and the Best Actress Oscar for Anne Hathaway. Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, an outlier to the genre in that it’s not based on any pre-existing IP, may largely be remembered for its infamous Oscars gaff but it made $433m at the Box Office and remains just one of three films to gain 14 nominations at the Oscars, winning six. Rob Marshall’s Into The Woods tried to replicate the success of Les Misérables, returning $212m for Sondheim’s dark fairytale fable, but Michael Gracey’s The Greatest Showman blew box office expectations wide open with a $428m return, continuing to impress itself on musical culture with a Broadway adaptation currently in the works. One of the rare times when a musical film becomes fodder for musical theatre.
Directors stacked their casts with talent from both the world of film and theatre. Anna Kendrick was paired with Broadway royalty Jeremy Jordan for The Last Five Years, while Les Misérables puts Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway next to Aaron Tveit and Samantha Barks. One could argue the reason Into The Woods failed to land as well as its predecessors was its lack of stage talent integrated with screen actors, despite Bernadette Peters, Imelda Staunton, and Amy Adams all having appeared in versions onstage.
The formula was simple: bankable names and well-known theatrical material that will travel well. And then, in 2019 – Cat-astrophe.
It had all the makings of a smash. Oscar-winner Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) was back in the director’s chair. There was a large, starry cast: Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen and noted cat lady Taylor Swift. Sequins and fur were out: motion capture was in. Ignoring the staple costuming of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Marmite musical, Hooper once again integrated stage performers into the cast, casting Zizi Strallen, and two principal dancers at the Royal Ballet, Francesca Hayward and Steven McRae.
But sitting at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and with endless jokes about it – even from its own stars – Cats turned into a catastrophe. Critics tore it apart. Audiences either hate-watched or didn’t watch at all. Part of the blame fell to Tom Hooper – and not just because of the accusations by VFX teams of his behaviour during post-production (#ReleaseTheButtholeCut). Cats is already a divisive musical, but the film adaptation was a mess. The decision to turn beloved actors into motion-captured cats that looked like sleep-paralysis demons certainly didn’t help. Odd casting choices, unfinished VFX, bad reviews, bad reception, failure to make its big budget back – Cats changed the game. With such a wild failure on their hands, executives got cold feet. Musicals were box office poison.
And then, in 2021: a change. Across theatres and streaming in the UK and US, sixteen movie musicals were released. Some bombed hard, some middled. But from out of the pack, kicking and shouting, two entered the ring to battle as awards season kicked off.
Steven Spielberg’s remake of 1961’s West Side Story and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick…Boom! showcased the real spectrum of modern musical theatre. The former was the balletic Sondheim epic, the latter Jonathan Larson’s prelude to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent. Two very different musicals, two very different adaptations. But each capitalized on the two things the movie musical needs to survive: talent and spectacle.
Adding little plot-wise to his remake, Spielberg relied on theatrical talent to bring this tragic tale to life. Casting the then-unknown Rachel Zegler as Maria, as well as Broadway performers Ariana DeBose (Hamilton) as Anita and Mike Faist (Newsies, Dear Evan Hansen) as Riff, suddenly gave Broadway fans a reason to buy a ticket. I dare you to watch Faist dancing circles around Ansel Elgort in ‘Cool’ or Ariana DeBose leading the charge in the famous ‘America’ dance break and not feel goosebumps. They’re as electrifying on screen as they are onstage.
Even behind the camera, the right talent can transform the reception of a movie musical. Tick, Tick…Boom! showed that with the right people behind the camera, even actors with no musical experience (ie. Andrew Garfield) can give a career-defining performance. Nobody understands musical theatre like Lin-Manuel Miranda and it was his deep familiarity with the genre that gave the film its edge. Musical numbers are earned and gorgeous to watch, effortlessly integrated into the overarching plot while providing the showmanship we crave.
There was, of course, one minor problem. For all their talent, their spectacle – neither film could be considered a commercial success. West Side Story made just $74m globally on a budget of $100m. Tick, Tick…Boom! grossed just $115,585 on its limited theatrical run before Netflix released it worldwide. Yet, their Rotten Tomatoes scores are 92% and 87% respectively. Critics like it, but it doesn’t translate to ticket sales. Is it a lack of star power? Limited time in theatres? Or just a general indifference to the genre as a whole, as proved by other 2021 flops In The Heights and Dear Evan Hansen?
So it’s no wonder studios are turning to trickery. Wonka marketed itself as a whimsical, fun-for-the-whole-family movie, not a musical. It did incredibly well, showing at cinemas across the world for months after its initial release, making $629m on a $125m budget and earning general critical praise. Despite a critical pasting, Mean Girls made over $100m on a $36m budget, using an Olivia Rodrigo song for its trailer over one of its many musical numbers. The numbers don’t lie. But I believe there is a way for the movie musical to retain its soul AND make their production budgets back.
For the risk-averse, adapting Broadway musicals will continue to be the way forward. Pre-existing IP will get people into cinemas considering it’s vastly cheaper than a theatre ticket. But with the right people hired to make these adaptations, the goal of achieving critical acclaim and commercial success could become far more balanced than it is now.
The talent aspect is simple: hire people in front of and behind the camera who understand musicals. Listen to Hannah Waddingham when she tells you to hire theatrical talent because “they won’t let you down”. Fundamentally, they know how to get the best out of the genre and that translates on-screen. Hopes are high for Jon M Chu’s upcoming two-part adaptation of Wicked, which remains one of the most successful Broadway shows of all time (having made over $1bn since it opened in 2003). Leads Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba) and Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero) are Tony and Olivier-award winners respectively, but also well-known faces on screen.
They’ve also been paired with megastar Ariana Grande and bonafide movie stars like Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh – surely, the safest combination one could create for a movie of this size and scale. Even director Jon M Chu is no stranger to the genre, having directed 2021’s In The Heights on top of countless music videos. When you have directors, actors, writers, cinematographers and choreographers who understand the complex syntax of the musical, the end product becomes so much stronger. It’s a delicate balancing act, but getting people who love the genre usually makes the films better.
Spectacle is harder to quantify. Why do we watch movie musicals? We want to see things that are impossible within the boundaries of a theatre space. Think of Gene Kelly dancing in the rain, of Dolly Levi and the whole of Yonkers putting on their Sunday clothes, or the Grease car flying up into space. The musical has always pushed the boundaries of what a camera could capture and we need that pioneering energy back. La La Land proved that even the everyday can be spectacular, whether that’s cars jammed on a freeway or Ryan Gosling walking down a pier. Bring back the spectacle and you bring back the reason for the movie musical’s existence. Wicked’s magical world can be expanded infinitely on a film in a way it can’t in the theatre – it might be the best reason for adapting it for film. One can only hope that the unimpressed reaction to their initial trailer in February encouraged them to get back into the editing suite before Part One’s release in November. But for this autumn’s other musical offering, a grittier visual feast awaits.
As we approach the international release of Joker: Folie à Deux, the creatives behind the film have done everything they can to not call it a musical (despite previously saying it was). A Variety cover story, an awkwardly phrased answer at a press conference, and an insistence at every turn before its Venice premiere that this film is NOT a musical.
Yes, Joker: Folie à Deux is a world away from In The Heights or Mary Poppins, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a musical. Someone meaner than me might even call it a jukebox musical, which opens up a whole different can of worms. You might ask why Todd Phillips and co are so afraid to call it what it is. Do they consider the ‘musical’ to be a lesser genre that may prevent them from winning Oscars? Or, as I strongly suspect, did marketing intervene and say ‘For the love of Gene Kelly, stop calling it a musical or people won’t see it!’.
I could say they don’t know what a musical is, but they’re smart people. Lady Gaga’s in it, of course she knows what a musical is! But it’s now seen as the kiss of death to use the dreaded M-word. Audiences don’t like musicals, we’re told. But, the money’s been spent, the film’s been edited – let’s market it differently and hope no one notices all the singing and dancing. And by the time they discover the truth, the movie’s already got your money, so what can you do? Early reviews of Joker: Folie à Deux from Venice have been mixed. The Independent called it ‘edgy and disturbing’, the BBC ‘an underwhelming, unnecessary slog’. Hannah Strong’s review for Little White Lies called it “a film of half-measures, lacking ambition in a way that is at least mildly more entertaining than its predecessor”, though puts that positive down to the inclusion of music from half a century ago. Of course, the moviegoing public will have to wait until October 4th to judge for themselves, but arguably the ban on the word ‘musical’ has had the opposite effect.
Successes in the last decade have proved that, with enough confidence in the genre, the movie musical can thrive critically and commercially. There is an audience out there for these movies and with the right people behind them, they will sell tickets. Wicked and, to a certain extent, Joker: Folie à Deux, are going to be an enormous test and I’m praying that the creatives and audiences come through. If they don’t, it could be Bye, Bye Birdie for the whole genre.
