Thursday, March 15, 2007

Insatiable Appetite for Disney Musicals

This is a news report on Disney's successes (and partial success as in the case of Tarzan) in their staging of various Broadway Musicals ranging from the trailblazing Beauty and the Best to the about-to-open The Little Mermaid.

There's not a whole lot of surprises here, but I'm still amazed at some of the really silly criticisms here (and lest we forget, I am not adverse to criticizing Disney myself). For example:

Others have criticized Disney for lacking originality and for pushing out independent producers.

'The concern with a lot of people is that they are recycling movies,' Wollman said. 'But that all gets confused with the fact Broadway has always been a commercial entity.'

Disney believes Broadway has room for a range of musicals, and that they have brought new audiences, said Schrader.

'It is easy for people to say 'Oh Broadway is now just about people translating films into musicals and now it is ruined',' he said, pointing to the range of musicals currently on Broadway. 'This just isn't true.'


Anyone who thinks that all one needs to do is take a hit movie, put it on stage, and bam, one has a hit musical needs to get a whack on the back of the head. Just look at The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, both the movie and the Broadway musical, and I rest my case! The artistry, ingenuity, and creativity required to translate these movies (and don't forget, these are ANIMATION movies), especially The Lion King, shows how difficult and DIFFERENT it is to do that. If it was that easy, we would have had several hit movies being staged on Broadway already from other companies. Shrek the Musical, anyone?

Zz.

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