Since the pandemic, it has been difficult for people to go watch their favorite Broadway musicals in person. So we can’t blame producers and directors for thinking that it is the perfect time to adapt the hit Broadway musical shows into movies. In the past couple of years, there has been a come-back in musical films such as West Side Story, tick, tick…BOOM!, In the Heights, and Dear Evan Hansen, to name a few. Some were nominated and won awards, but for others, their films’ sales did not exactly align with their huge Broadway box office success.
President of Los Angeles Film Critics Association Claudia Puig sees that “musicals are their own animal” and only hit a niche group of audience. With the history of the popularity in musical movies, such as Sound of Music, Singin’ in the Rain, and Grease, Puig says “musicals used to be a staple of Hollywood… but now it is a specialized niche audience and it’s become even more so.” Currently, within the group of stage musical hardcore fans, there is another subset group who are willing to take the time to go watch musical movies.
Puig adds that even in the best-case scenario with the best-renowned director like Steven Spielberg, musical films are a hard sell. Puig notices that both West Side Story and In the Heights may have expected more turnouts from LatinX audiences because of recognition around the LatinX community and some Spanish songs. However, as a Latina herself, she personally did not see her Mexican American fellows go out of their way to the cinema to watch the films saying, “even if they are about a particular ethnic group, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those people will turn up.”
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Film critic at TheWrap Alonso Duralde also estimated the key demographic of the population that contributed to the viewership of West Side Story were older generations who remembered the 1961 original and who were wanting to see what the revival turned out to be like. Ultimately, although Spielberg’s new film had great reviews and wealthy awards, Duralde says it did poorly at the box office losing money, partially because of the older generations deciding to stay safe at home rather than watch it at the theaters. Although Spielberg had nothing but great things to say about his during a PGA Awards breakfast, he did mention a shocking announcement that this will be his last time directing a musical movie and stepping back as a producer in his future musical adaptations, such as The Color Purple.
On the other hand, it is not exactly clear how well the running competitor in the musical film, tick, tick…BOOM!, did on Netflix due to the fact that streaming services are not being entirely open about their viewing rates. Nonetheless, even with lead actor Andrew Garfield’s highly praised and outstanding performance in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film, it only gained minimal attention among the award nominations. Nevertheless, it seems like streaming services like Netflix will be putting more effort into expanding their film genre to the musical movies field as well. They are currently working on upcoming film adaptations including Matilda and 13: The Musical. Duralde says Netflix’s service tactic is that “they are not so much about ‘this movie has to earn back what it cost us,’ their model is: ‘this movie has to draw in enough new subscribers or keep our subscribers happy.’” With this outreach and expansion, streaming services may be the future of the survival of musical films. However, Puig mentions that it is inevitable for filmmakers to escape from the constant pressure of adapting a screenplay into a musical adaptation film.
💫 *Alisha Weir as Matilda*💫
💫 *Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull*💫
💫 *Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey*💫
That’s magic. That’s MATILDA. Director Matthew Warchus’ musical adaptation, coming to Netflix. pic.twitter.com/CcTbItI8TV
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) January 15, 2021
Puig views that the audiences’ comparison to the originals can also affect reviews of films. Scripts that are based on books or have already been adapted into a film or stage performance, for example Harry Potter, will give fans the base to compare the reinvented adaptations to the original which makes it “more challenging” to satisfy their audience and fans. On the other hand, films such as La La Land was an original and did not have a source material or prior performance for the audience to make comparisons to. In addition, an original like La La Land was created for the screen in contrast to Dear Evan Hansen which worked perfectly on stage, but did not translate well on the screen.
Broadway hit show Dear Evan Hansen was an unexpected cinematic adaptation failure. Duralde theorizes that what can be acceptable on-stage musical performances, where characters abruptly sing their emotions out, did not make sense from the cinematic angle. Puig explains that the line where musicals “try to be like reality and yet are so unreal dealing with relatively understandable everyday realistic emotions and then suddenly someone breaks into song” is what makes it hard to shift the screenplay cinematically. Along with his own criticism, Duralde gave a shoutout to Youtuber Jenny Nicholson for her in-depth analysis of the mismatched acting and inconsistent singing in the film. During on-stage musicals, although other characters may be present on stage with the lead character, it is self-explanatory to dismiss the surrounding characters and focus on the main character singing their emotions out. However, both Nicholson and Duralde argue that some scenes in the film version of Dear Evan Hansen had awkward set-ups where the lead, Evan, will sing at the dinner table while the other characters will reply normally. Duralde sees this adaptation failure as a wake-up call and says it was a “perfect storm of stuff that they somehow got away with on stage that didn’t work in a movie and then other stuff that just was bad decisions on the part of the filmmaker.”
While Dear Evan Hansen did not have many dance choreographies, In the Heights and West Side Story were all about dance and music, which also means more costs. Duralde pointed out that budget-wise, musicals are always going to be pricey, especially musical movies. He says filmmakers will need to “accept the gamble” and take the risk even though it might mean they would not necessarily profit off it. On top of taking the time and money to rehearse dance choreographies, cinematically shooting can be more expensive than stage performance. Filmmakers would also need to take into consideration the time and money spent if they want a really good dance number without any cuts or edits. But the blood and sweat put into the cinematography and the choreography is what attracts the eyes of the audience.
Puig and Duralde both emphasize the different experiences they get from watching musical movies on the big screen and watching them at home. They say that it was disappointing that In the Heights was mostly streamed on HBOMax rather than at the cinema. “There’s nothing quite like the whole experience,” says Duralde, “Like many of the great musicals, it is a movie that demands to be seen on the big screen.” Puig was also impressed when she watched the movie at the theaters and later was underwhelmed watching it at home. She says films like CODA which has a rich and powerful story could still be impactful watching on smaller devices, “but when you have either amazing visuals or sound effects or music, I just think you need the full experience.”
Despite all the critiques of musical films, it seems like they are not disappearing anytime soon. With highly anticipated musical films such as Wicked, starring pop singer Ariana Grande and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, along with The Color Purple produced by Oprah Winfrey, and Disney classic The Little Mermaid coming up, Duralde does not think musicals are going anywhere with the target audience the films can feed. Puig agrees and sees more of a vision in the modern society that relies on streaming services saying, “the future of musicals lies more in streaming services than it does in theaters and the theatrical experience.”