Life's A Drag for Travolta (left) in Hairspray |
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It's been four years since box office lightning struck a stage musical turned motion picture. In 2002, Catharine Zeta-Jones challenged CHICAGO audiences with the sexy, musical come hither, "Why don't we paint the town, and all that jazz?!" Few MatchFlickers resisted Zeta-Jones' seductive query. More than $300 million in worldwide box office, and many awards, followed. Catharine Zeta-Jones claimed the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and CHICAGO became the first musical to win the Best Picture Oscar since 1968's Oliver!
Fans of the movie musical genre were doing cart-wheels. "The big movie musical is back!" they enthused. With CHICAGO both a box office and a critical triumph, the media saw the dawning of a Second Golden Age of the Hollywood musical.
That Second Golden Day never dawned.
For 2004's, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber put up the lion's share of an $80 million budget. Utilizing a relatively unknown cast, Lloyd Webber produced the motion picture PHANTOM that he wanted to be made. While the box office was not disastrous, it grossed a modest $154 million worldwide, and it didn't really score strongly with movie-goers or award-givers.
Last year, RENT, the motion picture, using the same cast that made this pop rock retelling of LA BOHEME a New York musical sensation, belly-flopped at the box office, grossing an anemic $30 million.
One month after MatchFlickers evicted RENT, an even bigger motion picture musical debacle was released. Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS was Broadway's 
The Fhantom Didn't Fly at The B.O. |
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first blockbuster of the new millennium, breaking box office records, and winning a record-setting 12 Tony Awards. Last Christmas Day, the motion picture version of the Broadway phenom, starring its award-winning stage stars, opened. The result was a pitiful $38 million worldwide.
So, what happened to the Second Golden Age of motion picture musicals, heralded by CHICAGO's success?
Although subsequent musicals have had quality and appeal, they movie were clearly inferior to CHICAGO.
All things considered, you might expect Hollywood's green light for movie musicals to be switched permanently to red. Au contraire, MatchFlickers. Between Christmas and Independence Day, two big, brassy movie musicals, adapted from smash Broadway hits, are headed your way.
The first to arrive (Christmas Day) is the screen adaptation of Broadway director Michael Bennett's (A CHORUS LINE) early 1980s' hit, DREAMGIRLS.
A thinly disguised re-telling of the rise and implosion of 1960s' super hit-makers The Supremes, DREAMGIRLS follows the spectacular rise of a 1960s' girl trio – The Dreamettes – after they are discovered by ambitious manager Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx). Re-dubbed The Dreams, the trio, under Curtis Taylor's control, becomes chart-busting stars. Eventually, the manager, as well as the record-buying public, narrows their focus upon one of the trio, Deena (Beyonce Knowles), ultimately forcing out the less popular Effie.
As if Jamie Foxx and Beyonce, as a Diana Ross-like diva, weren't enough, added star 
Will SWEENEY TODD Cut it With MatchFlickers? |
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power is given by Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover. DREAMGIRLS comes with a pedigree: It is written for the screen and directed by CHICAGO's Oscar-nominated screenwriter Bill Condon. Can musical lightning strike twice for Condon? We'll know for sure before the clock strikes 2007.
S (he)'s the one that you want. If DREAMGIRLS isn't your cup of Tea for Two, then Hollywood has HAIRSPRAY waiting in the wings, hoping the movie musical will be greaser lightning at the multiplex this summer. A hit Broadway musical, based upon John Waters' 1988 movie comedy, HAIRSPRAY gives us John Travolta as Edna Turnblad, a disparate housewife, paralyzed in a 1950s' mentality and hair-do, even though she's living in the 1960s. On Broadway, gay icon Harvey Fierstein won a Tony for playing Edna. In the original John Waters' movie, the role was played to perfection by 300-pound drag queen Divine (Glen Milstead). If an all singing, all dancing John Travolta in drag isn't enough to get you to HAIRSPRAY, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken, also star in this musical about racial activism.
If one, or both, of these movie versions of Broadway musicals mines box office gold, then look for Hollywood to keep its production light set to green for future tuners. Should DREAMGIRLS be a box office nightmare, and HAIRSPRAY a flat-top flop, then at least one more musical is on the horizon. Tim Burton is directing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the movie version of Stephen Sondheim's dark masterpiece SWEENEY TODD...
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| The Business of Show |
Every other Friday
Does advertising, public taste, or overindulged stars determine a movie's box office fate? Christoper Stone explores what's going on behind the box office.
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| Christopher Stone |
Christopher Stone is the author of the international best seller Re-Creating Your Self. With Mary Sheldon, he co-authored three highly successful hardcover books of guided meditations.
He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, West.
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