Originally published on www.sosogay.co.uk
When it comes to a big screen adaptation of a popular musical, there will always be a few grumbles from theatre snobs and fans of the original stage show. This is because stage musicals don’t always adapt well onto the silver screen, as some things can be done on stage that can’t be replicated in a film, whilst some musical adaptations achieve success at the box office when others don’t, it’s always a tricky genre to get right.
However, there appears to be a trend to getting some success out of a musical film, and that’s through the power of the cast. Big stars in musicals make big money, probably because everyone’s curious about the quality of said stars singing voice. But musicals that feature theatre stars, unknowns or the original cast don’t tend to fair well at the box office.
Perhaps directors thought they could get away with using stars of the Broadway stage, in the hope that the musical would carry itself. But in the case of Rent, which used the original cast in the film production, the name itself didn’t carry it and despite winning four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, the film failed to recoup its budget of $40 million grossing just over $31 million.
Maybe it bombed due to not having a big star in any of the title roles, or maybe audiences just felt it hadn’t made the transition from theatre to film very well. Although, when you look at musicals like Hairspray, the implementation of an all star cast that included Zac Efron, Michelle Pfeiffer and John Travolta, may have been the reason why the film grossed over $200 million worldwide.
This overlooking of Broadway and West End musical stars is truly a sad state of affairs, as talented actors and singers are not given major roles in musicals. Why would they, when the promise of a big star can draw in a wider audience.
Of course there are a few stars of the Broadway stage that made the successful transition to film, such as Barbara Streisand and Liza Minnelli. However these are two cases that occurred over 40 years ago, whereas today the performance appears to be compromised to get more people in the cinema, to see the big star of the moment struggle through two hours of singing.
Recent musicals have seen a few successes like Catherine Zeta Jones, Jennifer Hudson and Anne Hathaway, who all walked away with the Best Supporting Actress trophy at the Academy Awards. But when you remember that Miss Zeta Jones had a background in theatre training and Miss Hudson belted her way through a few weeks on American Idol, their performances were hardly surprising. For every nice surprise however, there’s a pretty nasty one waiting right around the corner.
In the 1996 adaptation of Evita, stars like Meryl Streep (who can sing it turns out) and star of Cabaret, Liza Minnelli were both turned down for the lead role in favour of the popular singer, yet questionable actress Madonna. The role of Eva Perón had originally been played in the West End by Elaine Paige, and had been originated on Broadway by Patti Lupone, who won a Tony Award for her turn in the lead. With the signature song of the musical being ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ the Broadway and West End versions carry some weight behind them, whereas the Madonna version, despite being successful in the charts, fails in its attempt to covey the message behind the song in a limited vocal range.
This compromise of performance can be seen once again in Pierce Brosnan who struggles to sing his way through the film adaptation of Mamma Mia. Even though Abba weren’t the most vocally talented group in the world, it’s clear that they had a bit more pitch that Brosnan. Wh not give the role to somebody who could sing it? The use of stage actors for a relevant supporting part has been done before (just look at Samantha Barks in Les Misérables), and in this case the role could have been played much better by someone from the stage.
More recently we have been treated to the film adaptation of Les Misérables, which has so far grossed more than $400 million worldwide, and in part has been carried on the strength of it as a well loved musical, but that didn’t stop the use of an all star cast. Tony Award winner Hugh Jackman, and Oscar winner Anne Hathaway proved to be brilliant in the film, whilst other weren’t so great. Russell Crowe seems like the perfect choice for Javert due to his size, look, stage presence and notoriety but the key thing missing was his vocal ability, seen and heard clearly as he struggled next the other cast members for the whole 158 minutes. Helena Bonham-Carter also had difficulty with her part as Madame Thénardier, for anyone who has heard the original cast recording the role had a much larger voice unlike Bonham-Carter’s weak vocal, but she has admitted that she can’t sing herself so at least she’s honest. The two of them stand out for all the wrong reasons in the ensemble songs, and at times almost ruin them.
Although these performances don’t spoil a film – with the exception of Madonna in her lead role – they do take some magic away when you expect a big booming and belting voice, only to be met with someone talking through the song, as they can’t sing.
With the recent news that a movie adaptation of Wicked could happen sooner rather than later, due to the success of Les Misérables, one can only hope that the studio goes with a stage actress or the original actress, Idina Menzel, as anything less than this could compromise the musicals big voiced songs, especially ‘Defying Gravity’, which would ruin the musical altogether.
The same can be said for the long talked about Gypsy and Sunset Boulevard adaptations that have seen people like Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Glenn Close and Madonna’s names thrown around them. With the exception of Madonna any of these three Tony winners would be great for the film adaptations, that’s if the studio go with talent over star power, as these actresses popularity has waned over the years as young and brighter talents appear.
We can only hope that the future of musical film stars will rely on talent alone, and not how many column inches they can attract, but if they do stick with this formula lets hope the person they chose for the lead role won’t need the showstopper song changing too much. There’s only so many keys you can take a song down to…
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