# Musicals that were huge hits on stage and flops on screen **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 13, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288 "2016-06-13T20:34:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/21 "2016-06-14T07:59:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _The Producers_ and _Rent_ both come immediately to mind: > > And what do you attribute the audience not following it from stage to screen (where the tickets are much cheaper)? Well, The Producers was already a successful movie, so the remake was playing as a remake. That always seems to cut into the vibe and the audience. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/22 "2016-06-14T08:29:57Z")
I have a rather extensive collection of stage musicals and screen adaptations on CD. In about 98% of them, the movie version is inferior. This is because an attempt is made to appeal to a wider, more generic, audience. The music is arranged differently and amplified for movie sound, erasing all semblance of theater intimacy. And the singers are replaced by \*movie stars, \*whose voices often have to be dubbed. The only person who comes out ahead is Marni Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/23 "2016-06-14T08:55:58Z")
What kind of box office did “Cabaret” do? I don’t have the ability to check right now, but I’m sure it was small, even considering its Oscar wins. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/24 "2016-06-14T11:41:42Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > What kind of box office did “Cabaret” do? I don’t have the ability to check right now, but I’m sure it was small, even considering its Oscar wins. Apparently almost $43 million on a $6 million budget. I remember it as pretty successful. People praised Fosse for having all the songs in the cabaret instead of people breaking into songs in normal places. > **[Cabaret (1972) ⭐ 7.8 | Drama, Music, Musical](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327/)** > > 2h 4m | PG Getting back to recording on Broadway, back in 1987 Jerry Garcia played a series of solo shows on Broadway. The Grateful Dead recorded virtually everything but he was allowed to only record for purposes of checking how the sound was, the tapes had to be destroyed in presence of a union official. Some recordings have emerged because the Deadheads were experts at smuggling recording equipment into a venue. Fortunately the Metropolitan Opera has reached agreement with its unions to broadcast in theaters, maintain a pay website and have historic recordings on services like Rhapsody. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/25 "2016-06-14T12:40:40Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Shows are loath to broadcast the stage show, not because of unions, but because they don’t want to hurt the box office. Broadway shows draw people from out of town and they may not be willing to pay Broadway prices of they’ve seen it before. I know that’s the prevailing wisdom, but I suspect it’s incorrect today. We’re now in a culture when fans of anything genre will pay $75 to spend a weekend in a hotel dressed in a homemade $300 costume of their favorite character. We have more sequels and remakes than original films. We binge watch, look up articles, create wikis (all while whining about spoilers!) and create fanfic. We’re obsessive. A taste in one media just gives us a craving for more. If they released even a recorded stage version of Hamilton into theaters tomorrow, it would break Box Office records, and the show would still play for years live. But it’s going to require a very brave producer to take the chance by being the first one to try it. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/26 "2016-06-14T13:37:43Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I know that’s the prevailing wisdom, but I suspect it’s incorrect today. We’re now in a culture when fans of anything genre will pay $75 to spend a weekend in a hotel dressed in a homemade $300 costume of their favorite character. We have more sequels and remakes than original films. We binge watch, look up articles, create wikis (all while whining about spoilers!) and create fanfic. We’re obsessive. A taste in one media just gives us a craving for more. > > If they released even a recorded stage version of Hamilton into theaters tomorrow, it would break Box Office records, and the show would still play for years live. > > But it’s going to require a very brave producer to take the chance by being the first one to try it. Eh, I don’t know. I think that mega-hit shows like Hamilton would still manage to do massively well in NYC, but I think that it would draw audiences away from less popular shows. That, and there is something about being there and seeing it live that is unlike any other art form. The day they begin regular broadcasts of Broadway shows is the day they take their first step on becoming just another TV station (do those still exist?). The magic of Broadway, for audiences and performers, is the immediacy and intimacy of it. Remove that, and the experience becomes nothing special. Like seeing pictures of great art, or of beautiful landscapes in a book, as opposed to experiencing them in person. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/27 "2016-06-14T13:40:42Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I know that’s the prevailing wisdom, but I suspect it’s incorrect today. We’re now in a culture when fans of anything genre will pay $75 to spend a weekend in a hotel dressed in a homemade $300 costume of their favorite character. We have more sequels and remakes than original films. We binge watch, look up articles, create wikis (all while whining about spoilers!) and create fanfic. We’re obsessive. A taste in one media just gives us a craving for more… Hard to say. But it’s not the big fans who keep Broadway musicals afloat – it’s the tourists. And consider a filming of _Hamilton_. They’d do it with Lin-Manuel Miranda in the lead. But he’s leaving. So which would most people go to? Spending a few thousand dollars for tickets and travel to see the original cast or seeing it on your big screen TV (probably with better sightlines)? Rabid fans are always a small portion of any fandom, and Broadway can’t depend on rabid fans to fill the house. They have to show something that people can’t get elsewhere. It will also cut into the sales for the touring companies, which is almost as big as Broadway receipts. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/28 "2016-06-14T14:52:39Z")
I tend to think that the big problem with going from the stage to the screen is one of visual scope and the associated storytelling challenges. For example, most stage musicals are centered around the actual musical parts- while the sets may be elaborate, they’re just there as something that enables the acting and musical parts. On the big screen, it sort of flips, in that the visual aspects of the backgrounds, and the camera angles and distances change things quite a bit- suddenly it’s a movie, and people pay attention to stuff that they’d be more than willing to overlook on the stage. I keep thinking that someone should do “Wicked” as a movie, but then every time, I realize that it would be 90% trying to make it look and feel like a credible prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” and telling the story of Elphaba, and a lot less about the musical aspects. They’d probably do best to lay out a straight movie of the story, and then figure out where to insert the musical numbers, than to adapt the actual stage musical for the screen. I suspect most musicals go the latter route, rather than the first though, and that’s what makes them seem a bit strange. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/29 "2016-06-14T15:11:08Z")
This far into the thread and no one has mentioned _ **Mame** _? Or have I missed something? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/30 "2016-06-14T16:11:44Z")
Just looking at box office numbers, very few movie musicals were huge hits anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/31 "2016-06-14T18:47:57Z")
I was going to say Into the Woods but I see it did pretty well, just wasn’t an amazing critical success. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/32 "2016-06-14T19:09:42Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > I wonder if the Broadway unions make a mistake by refusing to allow filming of plays. Things like Julie Andrews and Richard Burton in “Camelot” doing a song only exist because they did it on Ed Sullivan’s rilly big shew. Couldn’t you film it and get some money when it is done on Broadway…giving everyone a cut of the money. You can get tv packages for lots of sports and they do alright at the gate. Many plays and musicals are recorded by the [New York Public Library](http://www.nypl.org/locations/divisions/theatre-film-and-tape-archive), although the archives aren’t available to the general public. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/33 "2016-06-14T20:28:30Z")
I figure that by the time _Hamilton_ is made into a film, everyone will have gotten sick of the multitude of rap historical musicals. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/34 "2016-06-14T21:31:52Z")
Diana Ross’ movie version of “The Wiz” was a major flop. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/35 "2016-06-14T21:38:48Z")
“Annie” was a smash on Broadway, but the 1982 movie version with Aileen Quinn and Albert Finney was a stiff. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/36 "2016-06-14T21:55:07Z")
The Rocky Horror Show completely bombed as a movie, before of course finding a devoted cult audience. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/37 "2016-06-14T22:50:51Z")
**Rock of Ages** on stage is dramatically different than the movie. I enjoyed the movie for it’s camp (and because I used to go backstage at some heavy metal concerts, so it was a bit nostalgic), but the stage show is genuinely funny ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/38 "2016-06-15T01:23:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I keep thinking that someone should do “Wicked” as a movie, but then every time, I realize that it would be 90% trying to make it look and feel like a credible prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” and telling the story of Elphaba, and a lot less about the musical aspects. A movie version of \*\*Wicked \*\*is in development, but I’m not sure how far along. Last I heard they were hoping for a winter 2016 release, but of course who knows if that’ll ever actually happen. ---
**Author:** ![Annoying\_Buzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Annoying\_Buzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annoying_Buzz)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/39 "2016-06-15T01:23:12Z")
Tim Burton’s adaptation of _Sweeny Todd_ appears to have grossed just barely more than its budget, and wasn’t that well received critically. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288/40 "2016-06-15T03:43:28Z")
I don’t know the box office but reviews were not very good for “A Little Night Music” in 1977 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicals-that-were-huge-hits-on-stage-and-flops-on-screen/757288.md?page=3)