Discuss: Musicals ... When is Enough, Enough?
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Remakes and Sequels
In 2003, I trudged to my local neighborhood theater and watched Evil Dead: The Musical. And then I watched it again. It was unique, crazy, fun, and pretty much perfect. Still, I never thought it would ever go beyond the walls of small Annex theaters in Toronto -- until it went to Montreal for Just for Laughs, and then New York City, and now, even a production in Seoul. I loved it for being unique, different, and from the hands of people only a few friends removed. But I never dreamed what would come in its wake.These days, everything is becoming a musical. It's super-hot -- we've got horror musicals, musicals based on shows/films based on musicals, you name it. It's the unfortunate, money-grubbing result of popularity. Once a few are popular, many will follow, trying to capitalize on the same success until we are drowned in a sea of unoriginality, desperately trying not to suffocate under the weight of copycats. Quickly, what made the breakthrough so special is tarnished, and what was cool quickly becomes the most uncool.
I desperately wish it would happen to musical remakes already. Must everything be made into a musical? Just because a certain cult horror film was surprisingly made into an uber-excellent musical does not mean that every movie can, or should, have the same fate.
Variety reports that Legally Blonde, which has already played in cities like New York, is going national this fall. Even more shocking, in another story, Variety reports that Bubble Boy is getting some workshop musical treatment. Bubble freakin' Boy. I happen to adore the movie, but we just don't need Shiny Happy musical performers and vato cutting on-stage.
Where will it end? Usually, about here, I'd make a joke about some unheard of film that would never ever become a musical. But honestly, after these, plus A Color Purple, I don't think anything is sacred, or off-limits. Just you wait -- one day we'll get to see Carmen Electra's boobs bouncing around not in 3D splendor, but rather a musical version of Scary Movie. She'll run through the audience, a light spray of water hitting her as she tries to run from the killer in her underwear ... while singing.
Have you had enough yet? Or, are you loving all of these musical remakes?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-02-2008 @ 8:11PM
MCW said...
I don't "get" the remake of a movie into a musical. It seems definitely like a money-grabbing thing.
These past few years though, I've found a lot of new musicals that were made into movies, and I think there is still a lot of material to mine. Sweeney Todd and Dreamgirls for example, I loved both. But Bubble Boy? What songs could be in that junk? "Five Hunded Dolla! Five Hunded Dollas!"
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4-02-2008 @ 9:05PM
JP said...
I think it has begun to be too "meta". I imagine people sitting around thinking about the strangest possibilities for musicals and then developing it.
To be fair, playwrights and composers with original material have had a rough go of it on Broadway in the last 15 years, so once they saw the golden ticket of the "meta" musical they decided to cash in. I imagine them saying things to each other like "If they can make an Evil Dead Musical..."
Hopefully these pay days will lead to a resurgence of original material in the next few years.
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4-02-2008 @ 10:04PM
Holly Huffstutler said...
At first I thought you were talking about movie musicals and the recent renewal of the genre, But then I went back and read you again.
Are you under the impressions that musicals that were based on something else are new? If so, please do some research into Broadway. It started alot earlier than 2003
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4-03-2008 @ 9:36AM
Eric said...
I do have one question. Where do you think musicals usually come from? Take a look at the ten longest running musicals on Broadway of all time:
1. Phantom of the Opera (Based on book)
2. Cats (Based on book)
3. Les Miserables (Based on book)
4. A Chorus Line
5. Oh Calcutta
6. Beauty and the Beast (Based on film based on book)
7. Rent (Based on opera)
8. Chicago (Based on play)
9. Lion King (Based on movie)
10. Miss Saigon (Based on opera)
And you can go on and on with shows like Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, etc. Musical theater has never really been that big on originality. Chorus Line was original. Calcutta was too, but only popular because of extensive nudity. It's actually considered a pretty lousy show artistically. You can't really gripe about lack of original ideas now, since it's never really existed.
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4-03-2008 @ 1:27PM
AJ Wiley said...
Hey, if Joss Whedon did a Serenity musical, I'd be there.
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4-04-2008 @ 12:40PM
Ethan Stanislawski said...
The problem is, for every successful Broadway adaptation of a movie into a music there will be at least 5 that tank. The Producers and Spamalot are to blame for the High Fidelity, Legally Blonde, and Lord of the Rings catastrophes. The success of Xanadu on Broadway, based on one of the worst movies of the 80s, we'll keep them coming for at least another few years. At least for Broadway's sake, there's a growing trend of young, rock-based, inspirational muscials such as Spring Awakening, Passing Strange, and In the Heights that's beginning to overtake the movie-musical trend. But it'll still be around at least until the end of the decade.
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