Why musical trailers don’t show tunes anymore (today's Weekly Blast)Crunching the numbers behind Hollywood’s latest “musical” problem (GUEST POST)
Shalom, Broadway lovers!In today’s Weekly Blast: a guest essay about the statistics behind Hollywood’s phobia of including songs in its trailers for movie musicals; and a Last Blast about Into the Woods. (Premium subscribers also get a Piano Talk on “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress and a Broadway Blast about Beauty and the Beast.) JUST ANNOUNCED: Sondheim Academy every Tuesday in February at Noon ET. Join Broadway Maven David Benkof, Sondheim expert Gail Leondar-Wright, and music educator Mateo Chavez Lewis for an exploration of advanced topics in Sondheimia. The four sessions: Sondheim’s Jewish and gay identities; West Side Story; Sondheim’s women; and Sondheim’s nations (Assassins and Pacific Overtures). Details below. NOTE TO READERS: the article below is adapted from Daniel Parris’s excellent substack “Stat Significant,” which looks at popular culture through the lens of statistics, charts, and graphs. I read it, and I recommend it.
What Happened to Movie Musical Trailers? In July of last year, Warner Brothers released the first trailer for its long-awaited Wonka musical, a dazzling two minutes of razzmatazz, ornate sets, and choreographed dance – but no apparent singing. The omission of Wonka's musicality showcased an emerging trend in movie musical marketing—a sparkly advertisement sans the "musical" part. Weeks earlier, a trailer for an adaptation of Broadway's The Color Purple significantly downplayed the film's singing, flashing shots of potential song and dance numbers without a sustained depiction of theatrics. Maybe a diehard theatre-lover comprehended that Wonka and The Color Purple were musicals, but would the average moviegoer catch on? Things got even weirder in November of this past year when a trailer for a Mean Girls musical was soundtracked by an Olivia Rodrigo tune rather than utilizing music from the movie itself. The internet erupted with confusion, with NBC News noting, "Mean Girls movie musical trailer met with confusion over lack of music," and HuffPost quipping, "Mean Girls Movie Musical Trailer Has Everything But The Music." Clearly, the makers of this trailer wanted audiences to believe that this was a Mean Girls remake—only to be surprised when Regina George broke out in song. Is it better to trick audiences, frustrating deceived moviegoers, than accurately depict a forthcoming musical? Is this format so polarizing that it's better to lie? Musicals used to be among Hollywood's go-to genres, as blockbuster hits like The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins captivated audiences. But in recent years, the film industry has largely moved away from musicals, releasing fewer productions and obscuring the content of these projects when marketed. So today, aided by David Benkof, writer of The Broadway Maven (who provided helpful trivia for this piece), we'll explore the rise and fall of movie musicals. The Decline of Movie Musicals The first words ever spoken on screen were in a musical. In 1927, Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with synchronized dialogue and music, revolutionizing the movie industry and marking a shift from silent films to "talkies." The advent of sound (and later color) made musicals a staple of early 20th-century cinema, as the genre became a prime vehicle for showcasing cutting-edge filmmaking techniques through original scores, grand sets, colorful costumes, and extravagant dance numbers. Over the next few decades, The Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, and Meet Me in St. Louis would achieve massive mainstream success, elevating the commercial relevance of the genre. Unfortunately, the genre's cultural preeminence would eventually fade. The latter half of the twentieth century saw a steep decline in movie musical production. Disney has maintained its yearly release of one to two animated musicals (and probably will until the end of time), while the number of live-action projects has notably declined. In the 1930s, around 10 percent of all films were musicals. Today, that number sits below 1 percent.
Musicals fell out of fashion in the 1970s and 1980s as several high-profile box office failures made studios wary of investing in the genre. The enormous success of 1965's The Sound of Music spawned a string of big-budget, lower-quality projects like Hello, Dolly!, Doctor Doolittle, Camelot, Xanadu, and Lost Horizon, marking the end of the format's dependability. At the same time, television offered an alternative form of musical entertainment, reducing the novelty of song and dance performances on the big screen, while American film culture shifted toward "serious" and "relevant" movies (The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, etc.), rendering musicals out of touch and old-fashioned. Modern movie musicals have had difficulty establishing their place in today's box office environment—though this is not unique to the format (as Rom-Coms and mid-budget movies have also petered out). There is an unfortunate economic reality to the viability of entire genres. Movie musicals saw massive returns in the 1960s, followed by a steep drop-off in gross through the end of the 20th century.
Meanwhile, action, family, and fantasy films began to dominate the box office, offering consistent profits for studios seeking highly lucrative blockbusters. In Hollywood, films are quantifiable products with distinctive economic profiles and differing levels of built-in appeal. Unfortunately, musicals are unable to produce the billion-dollar returns of action franchises, and they are not cheap enough to yield a modest profit, like that of low-budget horror films or prestige indie dramas.
As such, the live-action musical is stuck in a middle ground of sorts—popular enough to hit on occasion but not a standard project for risk-averse studios. Even worse, the polarizing reception of musicals further muddies Hollywood's affinity for the genre. Some people don't like Broadway, plain and simple, while others worship at the altar of Streisand and Menzel (and if you don't understand who these people are, you're probably in the former bucket). Presumably, the genre's divisive appeal led recent trailers to downplay song and dance content. Theater lovers will seek out musicals, while others may need further convincing (or to be deceived, apparently). Sadly, producers will only invest in Broadway adaptations if they can guarantee broader appeal, like the cultural cache of ABBA or the celebrity of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Instead, live-action musicals have become a rarity, spawning a vicious cycle where the genre's scarcity leads to waning interest in the format. Over the last twenty years, online searches for "Movie Musicals" have significantly decreased, despite a spike in 2016 likely spurred by Hamilton and La La Land and a slight increase in 2021 driven by Steven Spielberg's West Side Story.
Audiences are receptive to the format, with searches increasing in response to a breakthrough hit. And yet, in the absence of future musicals emerging within the zeitgeist, appeal may continue to wane. What's left is a chicken-or-the-egg problem. The genre needs more mainstream entries to stoke interest amongst average moviegoers; however, few producers want to gamble on a musical without pre-existing moviegoer interest. Final Thoughts: The Rise of Non-Musical Musicals My sister is obsessed with all things Broadway, and I, being her little brother, was forced to watch everything she watched. As such, I have seen all iterations of Les Misérables, I have watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show more than ten times (though I still haven't seen the ending), and I know the names of many Broadway divas. I am pro-Broadway and pro-movie musical. On my first day of film school, we watched Singin' in the Rain on 35mm. I had never seen this movie on the big screen, and I was enthralled with Gene Kelly's acrobatic dancing, the colorful sets, and the memorable songs. When the picture finished and the lights came up, I turned to the person beside me and said, quite earnestly, "That was so cool." My seatmate shook their head with disapproval and exclaimed, "That was so f-ing boring." This was a shock. I was raised in a house where Broadway was monoculture; I had never considered it niche. A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to the movies and saw the now-infamous non-musical Mean Girls trailer. My wife, who does not like Broadway, was ecstatic at the notion of a Mean Girls remake. It was at this moment that I had the unfortunate pleasure of telling her that it was, in fact, a musical in disguise. Immediately, she was disappointed, "why would they do that?" she sighed. But then something funny happened. A few weeks later, my wife told me she had changed her mind; she wanted to see the Mean Girls movie. Was this new form of movie musical marketing working? Had movie studios Trojan-horsed song and dance into the hearts and minds of average moviegoers? Maybe. As of this writing, Wonka and The Color Purple are at or near the top of the box office, two camouflaged musicals with encouraging returns, a promising (if not slightly confusing) sign for the format. Musicals will never die; too many people love the genre for that to happen. Perhaps they will continue their trajectory as a small niche within the film industry. Or maybe these stories have broader appeal—provided moviegoers are not told of their content in advance. Sign up for Daniel Parris’s Stat Significant substack here.
Note: links to register for ALL classes are always available at TheBroadwayMaven.com.• Monday, January 29 Noon and 7 pm ET: “Jewish Lyricists” (FREE) • Sunday, February 4, 2024 Noon and 7 pm ET: “Funny Broadway”: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (FREE, registration opens soon) • Tuesday, February 6, 2024 Noon ET: “Sondheim Academy”: “Sondheim’s Identities: Jewish and Gay” ($39 Early Bird) • Sunday, February 11, 2024 Noon and 7 pm ET: “Funny Broadway”: The Producers ($9, registration opens soon) • Tuesday, February 13, 2024 Noon ET: “Sondheim Academy”: West Side Story ($39 Early Bird) • Sunday, February 18, 2024 Noon and 7 pm ET: “Funny Broadway”: Spamalot ($9, registration opens soon) • Tuesday, February 20, 2024 Noon ET: “Sondheim Academy”: “Sondheim’s Women” ($39 Early Bird) • Sunday, February 25, 2024 Noon and 7 pm ET: “Funny Broadway”: The Book of Mormon ($9, registration opens soon) • Tuesday, February 27, 2024 Noon ET: “Sondheim Academy”: “Sondheim’s Nations: Assassins and Pacific Overtures” ($39 Early Bird)
LAST BLAST: Into the Woods opens with the fairy-tale formula: “Once upon a time… ” but does not conclude like a typical fairy tale. The traditional sign-off is “And they lived happily ever after. The end.” In Sondheim and Lapine’s show, though, it’s “And happy ever after. I wish!” By replacing the final with the aspirational, the show returns to its first moments of the characters sharing their wishes, in a sort of circular fashion. Interestingly, though, Sondheim still gives a humorous nod to the phrase “the end” earlier in the show when the desperate Baker’s Wife deceives Jack with “magic beans.” She justifies her trickery with a lyrical twist on a famous saying: “If THE END is right, it justifies the beans!” Broadway Maven David Benkof helps students further their appreciation of musical theater through his classes, his YouTube channel, and his Weekly Blast. Contact him at DavidBenkof@gmail.com. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy The Broadway Maven's Weekly Blast, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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