Film Adaptations of Stage Musicals

This thread talks about film adaptations of stage musicals. How well do you think it adapts the story? Does it adhere to stage production too much? Too little? How do feel about dubbed singing voices?

Well, I saw Grease and liked it. It seemed to be a good adaptation of the source material. I also saw the 1982 version of Annie, but I didn't see it on stage or hear a full recording, so I can't help you there.

edited 3rd Apr '17 10:04:14 PM by DreamCord

Fiddler on the Roof is perhaps the best stage to screen adaptation, because of how well it adapted to the medium. There's a reason it won an Oscar for Best Cinematography.

Worst I've ever seen is Damn Yankees. Not only is the story not very good (random mambo number and Devil who apparently doesn't lie despite being the Father of Lies), but the movie doesn't take any advantage over the freedom in film. Worst example has to be when the hero is supposedly batting and hitting out of the park a ton, but we don't even see the ball, just the players looking up and away like if they had no budget. Literally the same as this joke, but played straight.

I liked 2005 The Producers film of the stage play of the film.

I am in the minority though, everyone I know hated it.

I have an affection for the musical Les Miserables film, despite its many, many flaws.

The Producers is a weird case. It's almost literally a filmed version of the state play, with very slight changes for the film medium. The whole thing (with a couple of exceptions) is shot like a sitcom where the camera barely moves unless it has to, and jokes that were based around the fact that it was a play (such as "Why Bloom go so far stage right?") got changed as little as possible ("Why Bloom go so far camera right") which doesn't work nearly as well because film staging is very different from theatre staging.

The hate mostly comes from the fact that it probably would have gone better if they had literally just filmed the stage play, if only because it would have come off less limp.

edited 6th Apr '17 7:48:22 AM by Zendervai

I saw Hello, Dolly! recently. It's not bad but all I could think (aside from "Barbara Streisand and Walter Matthau have no romantic chemistry") was "This is overblown". Now, the story is about a widowed matchmaker who tries to get herself married by meddling in other people's affairs and helping them out in the process. Simple. However, the budget of this film was 25 million. You know how much that is in today's money? 173 MILLION DOLLARS! The story shouldn't require a production cost this big! I realize every musical film in the late 60s was trying to be the next Sound of Music with roadshow releases, but that only hastened the downfall of these kind of musicals with Hello Dolly! being the final blow.

Edited by DS9guy on Apr 21st 2019 at 10:47:28 AM

Despite the cult status of The Rocky Horror Show, I'd love a remake that incorporated more elements from the play that were left out of the 1975 film.

One of my chief complaints with the 2016 remake was it was essentially a shot for shot remake of the original film, to the point that I wondered why they even bothered.

The recent Les Miserables film of the musical has some very good qualities, but is practically ruined by Russell Crowe’s (as Javert) inability to sing. I have to fast-forward all the parts with his songs.

Casting people with genuinely good singing voices is crucial.

In general, I do think it’s great to have a film of the musical, because it makes it accessible to a lot of people who don’t live in major cities and/or can’t afford theatre tickets. (Theatre = $100, movie theatre = $10-20.)

Edited by Galadriel on Apr 22nd 2019 at 10:25:07 AM

The big problem with Les Miz at least IMO, is the utterly baffling approach to the cinematography. Les Miz is a story for big sweeping angles and showing off the city, that sort of thing. Sticking the camera right up in the actors' faces and avoiding as many establishing shots as possible created an incredibly weird vibe that actually ended up really hurting the end result.

Like, the best scene in the movie? I Dreamed A Dream? Part of the reason it's such a good scene is because the director, Tom Hooper, actually backed the hell off and gave Anne Hathaway room to move around and emote without the audience looking up her nose the whole time. It barely feels like the same movie, in terms of cinematography. Tom Hooper is a...really bad director in general to be honest, all of his movies and productions are full of really strange filming decisions that, at best, don't detract from the actor's performances (because he actually is good at directing actors, he just has no idea what he's doing with a camera) and confuse film students, and at worst, actively work against the tone he's trying to achieve.

Broadway almost feels like it's for tourists. I've never talked to someone in person who has seen a Broadway musical. No one wants to pay $50-$200 for one ticket when you can go to the movies and buy a ticket for under $15.

Film adaptations are nice and accessible, but they take forever to come out. I've been waiting on a Wicked adaptation for over ten years now and it's gotten to the point where I don't even know what I want from a Wicked adaptation anymore.

(x4) Is Rocky even cult anymore? It feels mainstream.

Edited by Pichu-kun on May 7th 2019 at 1:41:18 AM

This description made me laugh but you are most likely right. I also feel that Le Miz suffers from them singing EVERYTHING. A few dialogues more would have done the whole thing some good. On stage those scenes are acted out like in a silent movie.

Personally, I'd much rather see a stage musical live in a theatre, then see one that was adapted for a movie, though. There are some great Movie Musicals of course, (off the top of my head I can think of Singin' in the Rain, The Music Man, and Mary Poppins, just to name a few), but in general, I usually find them to not work nearly as well in a live action movie.

Edited by megaeliz on May 7th 2019 at 6:55:48 AM

True. I also rather watch Les Miz in concert than the actual movie. Way better experience, because the focus is all on the singing.

Theatre is nice but it's niche. I've met very few people who like plays or musicals, yet everyone likes movies.

That's more a matter of accessibility and how someone grew up. Musicals specifically tend to be more mainstream though than theatre or operas or ballets.

"Back to the Future" has been turned into a stage musical.

The idea intrigues me, provided the music stylings resonates with 80s and 50s.

Also, it amuses me that the actor playing Marty looks an awful lot like Eric Stoltz.

"Dear Evan Hansen" will be made into a film. The things I hope for are:

1. Cast actors who can sing. Beauty and the Beast (2017) had Emma Watson as Belle, and as a result, I could hear Autotune at points (Although not as much as everyone complained).

2. Go all in on the mental illness thing. The tapped director, Stephen Chbosky, directed the film adaptations of Wonder (2012) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Both of them tackled serious health issues, like physical deformities and emotional abuse, so I expect that this high-calibre choice can unflinchingly tackle this tale, about a socially anxious kid.

3. Change the ending entirely. I wasn't satisfied with the theatre's conclusion, where Zoe easily forgave Evan for lying to her and her family for a long time, and choosing not to reveal his lie to the general public. Sure, he did lose his friends Alana and Jared for indulging in his fabricated story, but the play was building up the prospect of people finding out, which was abandoned with Zoe's choice alone. By making it so the lie becomes public, the ramifications could be explored in harrowing detail.

But that's just me. We'll wait and see...

Edited by The12thDoctor on Jun 7th 2019 at 7:57:57 PM

Bumping this as is far enough into production that it has a release date. I'm sure it'll be fine at least; I'm excited to see Amy Adams in another musical.

I have been musing a lot about what works on screen and what doesn't, especially with last month's The Prom which fell flat to me.

A new trailer for West Side Story!

The film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen premiered at TIFF recently, and it sounds like a trainwreck.

In 2009, Warner Bros. released Orphan, a horror movie about a young child who worms her way into a normal American household using perverse psychological manipulation before (spoiler alert) being revealed as an adult woman. On Thursday night, the audience at the opening night of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival was lucky enough to be treated to an unofficial Orphan remake. It is called Dear Evan Hansen, and it is nominally the story of a high schooler who tells a white lie that spirals out of control. But based on what’s staring us in the face from the movie’s very first frames, it is hard to read that plot as anything other than a grown man’s elaborate scheme to distract a bunch of teenagers from the fact that he is actually twice as old as they are. And even more chillingly, he gets away with it!

Joe Biden just said everyone who doesn’t get vaccinated is required to see Dear Evan Hansen in theatres

DEAR EVAN HANSEN: sometimes Broadway musicals don’t translate to film. Universal did it with CATS and they did it again with this. Major difference is that CATS is camp and this is an offensively messy dumpster fire that might as well be supervillain musical origin story.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN: If there were any chance of making this character look like something other than a monster, it rested on emphasizing his raw youth, which makes the casting of an OBVIOUSLY GROWN MAN JUST HUNCHING HIS SHOULDERS an act of sabotage that's near avant-garde

Undoubtedly the worst musical I have ever seen. Overwrought and emotionless at the same time. Borderline offensive about trauma and mental illness. It’s like it spun a wheel of trauma a hundred times and added every option. Jail to everyone.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Sep 15th 2021 at 2:38:01 AM

Well, that's depressing to hear, because stuff like "Words Fail" and "So Big/So Small" really wrecks my heart. (And I thought "Sincerely, Me" was fun.)

So...how soon can a different studio produce a do-over with an appropriately-aged actor as Evan? Like, five or ten years from now? Or is the original source material just so unworkable as a movie?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Sep 15th 2021 at 7:10:11 AM

If you ask me this is justice for Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 losing the Tony. Next step: the Baz Luhrmann-esque adaptation!

The thing with DEH is that *premise wise* it is relatively easy to adapt to the screen (2010s high school social media? Studios can do that in their sleep). I don't think the issue is Ben Platt's hair or Chbosky's direction...it's that Protagonist-Centered Morality is baked into the premise. From an outsider POV Evan is a manipulative softboy, so maybe the film is too nice to him on that front.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 15th 2021 at 6:24:04 AM

Not really surprised that DEH isn't that good on the big screen, most musicals like that tend to not be, especially when stuff often has to be cut out for time and things like that. I think most people are more focused on the music, though.

I heard something and saw pics of a 'cgi de-aged Ben Platt' on twitter as a re-cut of the film?

Uh... is that a real thing? Cuz it looked horrifying. Plz tell me that is a joke.