Today, I explain the seemingly simple, but apparently difficult to do, concept of allowing your movie musical to be promoted with music from the movie musical.
This is the Cronin Theory of Pop Culture, a collection of positions I’ve collected over the years that I think hold pretty true.
A while back, I did one of these on the topic of, hey, maybe don’t adapt a property if you seem to hate the property that you’re adapting, and I think that we’re seeing a bit of a similar approach when it comes to the promotion of movie musicals.
There was recently a trailer released for Mean Girls, which is a new movie musical adaptation of the Mean Girls Broadway musical, which was, in turn, based on the 2004 movie, Mean Girls.
The trailer has only one song in it, and it’s an Olivia Rodrigo song that’s not actually in the musical!
Can you even imagine that? You’re promoting your movie musical, and the only song you use is from a pop artist that is not in the movie?! Why would you do that?
And yet, that sort of thing is shockingly common when it comes to the advertisement of movie musicals. Take the upcoming Wonka movie musical. Again, not a single song in the trailer!
My pal Garth also noted that the upcoming The Color Purple movie musical (The Color Purple had even one more step than Mean Girls, as there was first The Color Purple the novel, then The Color Purple the movie and then The Color Purple Broadway musical before this new movie musical adaptation of the Broadway musical) mostly hides that it is a musical (since a character literally sings in the plot of the film, it’s easy to do)…
Other examples that aren’t AS dramatic include the recent movie adaptation of West Side Story, which has some of the most famous songs in the history of musicals, and yet there’s only one song from the movie in the trailer…
Similarly, 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, one of Stephen Sondheim’s best musicals, also only barely featured a snippet of a single song in its trailer!
Reader Scott also noted that Sondheim had that issue again in the 2014 Into the Woods trailer, which showed NO songs at ALL in it…
Garth also noted that the recent Tick…Tick…Boom! trailer also fairly well disguised that it was a musical (there IS a song, but it shows the character singing it from a piano, thus disguising that the whole movie is an outright musical)….
Why are you even DOING movie musicals if you’re that ashamed of them being musicals when it comes to advertising them? If you think it makes sense to do a movie musical, shouldn’t you actually use the music to hype up the film? Imagine talking about Grease, but wanting to hide the music! The music is the HOOK. It just doesn’t make any sense.
So movie folks, please allow your movie musical trailers to actually spotlight the music from the movie musical.
Studios are always hiding their intentions with some films in the (correct) theory that most audiences are getting tired of the same old thing and will not see it if it is.
The easiest examples are sequels. Studios always make them, yet usually refuse to number them, as if embarrassed they’ve made so many or are reduced to sequels. Yet the sequels never stop.
I say, if a studio wants to release SAW 27, then sell it as SAW 27, not THE SAW or SAW BEGINS or SAW: REVENGE OF A PUPPET or so on. Some film series are numbered for a while, then stop, then start numbering again, like FAST & FURIOUS.
As for musicals, their popularity waxes and wanes, and there is a perception that many straight male audience members won’t go for one if they know it in advance. I am not saying that is right, but I suspect that’s a reason.
What Alex said. IMHO most people aren’t interested in musicals, so disguising them is to trick more people to go see them. BTW the numbering thing is along the same lines: Hollywood doesn’t want anybody to feel like they’re missing anything or give anybody any reason not to race to the theater immediately.