Why are there so many Broadway musicals based on movies?

If you read our story in Friday’s Weekender, you know that this weekend’s offerings by the Lexington Opera House’s Broadway Live series and Louisville’s Broadway Series reflect a trend on the Great White Way and, in turn, on our regional touring Broadway series: movies. Here’s a little more on the topic.
Of the Broadway musicals currently listed on Broadway.com, more than a dozen out of 31 are based on or related to movies — plus you have to credit some of Wicked’s popularity to the fact it uses characters from The Wizard of Oz. There’s even an Evil Dead musical off-Broadway.
Half of the Tony Award winners for best musical in the past decade have been based on movies.
In Kentucky this weekend, theatergoers can choose from 2003’s best musical, Hairspray, based on the 1988 John Waters movie, in Lexington; or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, based on the ’88 Steve Martin-Michael Caine comedy, in Louisville.
To Zev Buffman, a longtime Broadway producer who is now the president and CEO of Owensboro’s RiverPark Center, the trend reminds him of another era in Broadway.
“In the 1980s, revivals were unheard of,” Buffman says. “It was seen as being unfaithful to the originals. But then the revivals were good and they were successful, and we had a whole barrage of revivals.”
Marty Bell, producer of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, observes, “Broadway producers are all copycats. Every single old show in the catalog was being done.”
But the well became shallow for revivals. Into the void stepped Disney, which hit with a stage version of Beauty and the Beast in 1994 and really hit in 1997 with The Lion King, still one of Broadway’s hottest tickets.
“Disney has changed the business,” says Bell, saying the Mouse has transformed the audience, raised expectations and thus raised costs.
Spectacles like Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables also have helped create audiences expecting a lot of bang for their bucks on Broadway, where tickets often top $100.
“A Hollywood mentality has come to Broadway,” says David Yazbek, composer and lyricist for Scoundrels and The Full Monty.
With rising costs, the stakes become higher and there’s a reluctance to invest in unknown quantities, particularly if a major part of your audience is made up of tourists who are in town only a few nights.
“Having a title you recognize becomes more important than it should be,” Yazbek says.
The movie trend has been good for the composer, who is looking at tranforming a few other film titles into Broadway shows.
Whether it will continue depends on whom you ask.
Bell and Buffman sense a waning supply of adaptable films and are looking to a return to original material. A major missing element is the absence of marquee creative teams like Rogers & Hammerstein or Kander & Ebb. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Frank Wildhorn, two of Broadway’s most reliable composers of the past decade, have faltered in their recent efforts.
There’s been an attempt to fill that void with Broadway’s other big trend, the pop star turned Broadway composer. The results have been mixed. Some revues such as the current Frankie Valli show Jersey Boys and the Abba-soaked Mama Mia! have been hits. Choreographer Twyla Tharp, fresh off the successful Billy Joel show Movin’ Out, has opened the Bob Dylan show The Times They Are A-Changin’, but after receiving largely negative reviews, it will close Nov. 19, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Pop stars’ writing new shows has been a bit dicey. While Elton John hit with Aida, his Lestat bombed, even with the cachet of reteaming with longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin and having Anne Rice novels as source material. Harry Connick Jr. and Paul Simon also have composed ballyhooed Broadway bombs.
Buffman says one problem might be pop writers are used to working independently and can get tripped up collaborating with book writers, choreographers and increasingly involved producers. Overall, there aren’t many marquee names out there.
“Even Stephen Sondheim can’t guarantee a good opening,” Yazbek laments. “If you cast Hugh Jackman, you can ride on that name.”
Which could explain why some don’t see the film-to-footlights trend fading.
“It’s not going anywhere,” says Tony Award-winning choreographer Jerry Mitchell, who is making his directorial debut next year with a stage version of Legally Blonde, starring Lexington’s Laura Bell Bundy. Both he and Yazbek say they are looking at other film-based projects.
“People watch movies,” Mitchell says. “There’s a lot of interest in them.”