History Trivia / Newsies

* BillingDisplacement: Played straight then subverted. Initially, Robert Duvall and Ann Margaret were given top billing on the posters and video release covers. Years later, after Creator/ChristianBale became a star as an adult, he received top billing on the UsefulNotes/BluRay release.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The original script for the movie, titled ''Hard Promises'', wasn't a musical and was [[https://newsiesquare.tumblr.com/post/180732985859/highlights-of-the-1991-script significantly darker]] than the finished product, with Jack having a dead brother who was crushed to death escaping the Refuge and who he occasionally confuses with Les, Davey's family being ashamed of him striking to the point he decides to move out, and Crutchie still stuck in the Refuge by the end.

** Creator/ChristianBale hated working on the film, and swore he'd never do another musical. He ''did'' do a voice in ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' three years later (also for Disney), but his character didn’t sing in that movie.

* OldShame: By his own account, Creator/ChristianBale wasn't too happy with the decision to turn ''Newsies'' into a musical. He is at least respectful of the film's cult audience, stating that "saying something negative about ''Newsies'' means there's an awful lot of people you have to answer to." It's something that would garner more just an embarrassed look than actual outrage (he even once briefly sang the "Santa Fe" refrain during an interview for ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'').

* GenreKiller: Of sorts. It was the studio's first live-action musical since ''Film/PetesDragon1977'', which itself killed the genre 15 years earlier. Unfortunately, this one did even worse, and the genre remained dead for another 16 years, until Creator/DisneyChannel's ''Film/HighSchoolMusical'' series transitioned to theaters.

* DawsonCasting: Several of the stage cast are considerably older than the ages of their characters. Jeremy Jordan and Andrew Keenan-Bolger, who respectively played the 17-year-old Jack Kelly and 15-year-old Crutchie in the original Broadway run, are both in their late 20s/early 30s.

** Creator/ChristianBale hated working on the film, and swore he'd never do another musical (He did a voice in ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' three years later, but his character didn’t sing in that movie.).

** Creator/ChristianBale hated working on the film, and swore he'd never do another musical (after he lent a voice to ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'', that is).

* OldShame: By his own account, Creator/ChristianBale wasn't too happy with the decision to turn ''Newsies'' into a musical. He is at least respectful of the film's cult audience, stating that "saying something negative about ''Newsies'' means there's an awful lot of people you have to answer to." It's something that would garner more just an embarrassed look than actual outrage (he even once briefly sang the "Santa Fe" refrain during an interview for ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''), but suffice it to say, he's sworn off musicals.