Fans of movie musicals will be heartened to note that the film version of the hit Broadway musical Hairspray took in nearly $30 million at the box office over the weekend, after receiving almost uniformly positive reviews. So the movie has already surpassed the total gross of the film versions of The Producers ($19 million) and Rent ($29 million), and will surely surpass that of Phantom of the Opera ($51 million).
In fact, according to Variety, Hairspray pulled off the "best musical opening on record," although something tells me that this could be prior to any adjustment for inflation. I mean, it's hard to imagine that Hairspray outperformed The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady, although the economics have certainly changed. Movies make a lot more in their opening weekends these days, so I guess it's possible that Hairspray is indeed a record breaker.
I haven't seen Hairspray yet, but I'm glad it's doing well, because the movie musical genre could use a shot in the arm after the aforementioned flops. There are certainly more movie musicals in current production, including Sweeney Todd, Mamma Mia, Nine, and...er...Naked Boys Singing. But the production pipeline works years in advance, and had Hairspray not done well, movie studios would have thought twice about green-lighting future musical projects.
Advanced word about the movie also seemed to strengthen ticket sales for the Broadway production, which has seen a steady rise in gross weekly receipts to more than $800,000 recently compared to a February low of about $400,000. Will that halo effect continue with the London production, which opens in October? Well, I'll certainly be paying to attention to see if it will.
Chris - I saw and I enjoyed, even if it didn't seem quite as vital as the raw energy unleashed on the stage.
Posted by: Steve On Broadway (SOB) | July 24, 2007 at 10:41 AM