JamesG
11-03-2010, 07:45 PM
1. Carrie (1976)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/CarrieDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/CarrieM.jpg
It's hard to believe that such an incredibly awful idea could come from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
In 1988 Friedrich Kurz produced a musical version of Carrie — based on Brian De Palma's film adaptation of Stephen King's novel — for a four-week run in England, where it was met with mixed reviews and experienced several technical problems.
One of those included stagehands trying to figure out how to spill fake blood on the show's main character without shorting her microphone.
Still, Carrie made it all the way to Broadway — at the cost of a whopping $8 million. But after three days and a flood of highly abusive reviews, the show closed, losing more than $7 million. The horrific tale was doomed from the beginning.
The New York Times wrote that if the play had been consistent in its "uninhibited tastelessness" it could have been a camp masterpiece.
Cue the 2006 production by Theater Couture, a gay performance group. The writer, Erik Jackson, explaining how he approached King with the idea of producing a camp version of his book, said that he told the author, "Carrie is ... the tale of the ultimate outcast. Who better than a big group of outcasts like us to do it in a way that would be funny and yet touching?"
The production went on to receive modest reviews and did not lose millions of dollars. Frighteningly, there has been talk of mounting a new big-budget version of the disastrous musical.
2. High Fidelity (2000)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/FidelityDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/Fideltiy.jpg
Nick Hornby's book made for an instant cult classic when the movie version was released in 2000. And you would think movies with great soundtracks would seamlessly make their way to Broadway.
But High Fidelity's musical debut in 2006 was a historic flop, getting the boot after only 10 days and 13 performances. It received awful reviews, not for the acting but mainly for the poor manner in which the show's producers re-created the movie's iconic soundtrack.
Despite the film's popularity, it brought in horrific numbers at the box office, costing more than $10 million to stage but earning less than $300,000. The New York Times called it one of the "all-time most forgettable musicals."
3. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/SweetSmellDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/SweetSmellB.jpg
One of cinema's great newspaper films, Sweet Smell of Success thrives on cynicism and dirty wit.
With a script containing more memorable one-liners than an entire year's worth of today's films ("I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic"), Success — a New York City–set film about a Walter Winchell–like press columnist (a cutting Burt Lancaster) and the toadying press agent who follows in his wake (Tony Curtis) — seemed like a great idea in the right Broadway hands.
Yet despite the presence of playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation) and star John Lithgow, it fell flat.
Part of it was, as TIME's Richard Zoglin put it, "For all its cynicism, the movie managed to convey the racy excitement of its tawdry milieu ... The musical just makes us see the dirt."
But the biggest knock against the stage production was the fact that Success works best as a movie, containing some of the most beautiful cinematography ever seen in film noir (thanks to the camerawork of James Wong Howe).
Whether in color or black and white, New York City has rarely looked more dangerously alluring.
4. La Strada (1954)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/StradaDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/StradaM.jpg
It starred Bernadette Peters.
It was choreographed by Alvin Ailey.
It had talent, but the musical version of La Strada closed after one performance in 1969.
The film shone in black-and-white glory, but Broadway was one road not open to Federico Fellini's Academy Award–winning "blend of myth and surrealism."
New York City, however, wasn't inhospitable to all shows inspired by the legendary Italian director's work: the musical Nine, based on Fellini's 8˝, fared better.
5. Shrek (2001)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/ShrekDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/ShrekM.gif
Making Shrek into a stage musical was a bad idea not because it wasn't successful — the show ran for more than a year on Broadway, had a U.S. tour and will have a West End tour in 2011 — but more because no one really likes the idea of a man dressed in a green ogre suit.
Not unless it's Halloween.
TIME's theater critic Richard Zoglin wrote of the stage version, "Without the speed and dexterity of the digital palette, everything that was light and offhand in Shrek on-screen becomes heavy and in-your-face in Shrek onstage."
There's something about animated farts that just seems far more palatable.
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/CarrieDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/CarrieM.jpg
It's hard to believe that such an incredibly awful idea could come from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
In 1988 Friedrich Kurz produced a musical version of Carrie — based on Brian De Palma's film adaptation of Stephen King's novel — for a four-week run in England, where it was met with mixed reviews and experienced several technical problems.
One of those included stagehands trying to figure out how to spill fake blood on the show's main character without shorting her microphone.
Still, Carrie made it all the way to Broadway — at the cost of a whopping $8 million. But after three days and a flood of highly abusive reviews, the show closed, losing more than $7 million. The horrific tale was doomed from the beginning.
The New York Times wrote that if the play had been consistent in its "uninhibited tastelessness" it could have been a camp masterpiece.
Cue the 2006 production by Theater Couture, a gay performance group. The writer, Erik Jackson, explaining how he approached King with the idea of producing a camp version of his book, said that he told the author, "Carrie is ... the tale of the ultimate outcast. Who better than a big group of outcasts like us to do it in a way that would be funny and yet touching?"
The production went on to receive modest reviews and did not lose millions of dollars. Frighteningly, there has been talk of mounting a new big-budget version of the disastrous musical.
2. High Fidelity (2000)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/FidelityDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/Fideltiy.jpg
Nick Hornby's book made for an instant cult classic when the movie version was released in 2000. And you would think movies with great soundtracks would seamlessly make their way to Broadway.
But High Fidelity's musical debut in 2006 was a historic flop, getting the boot after only 10 days and 13 performances. It received awful reviews, not for the acting but mainly for the poor manner in which the show's producers re-created the movie's iconic soundtrack.
Despite the film's popularity, it brought in horrific numbers at the box office, costing more than $10 million to stage but earning less than $300,000. The New York Times called it one of the "all-time most forgettable musicals."
3. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/SweetSmellDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/SweetSmellB.jpg
One of cinema's great newspaper films, Sweet Smell of Success thrives on cynicism and dirty wit.
With a script containing more memorable one-liners than an entire year's worth of today's films ("I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic"), Success — a New York City–set film about a Walter Winchell–like press columnist (a cutting Burt Lancaster) and the toadying press agent who follows in his wake (Tony Curtis) — seemed like a great idea in the right Broadway hands.
Yet despite the presence of playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation) and star John Lithgow, it fell flat.
Part of it was, as TIME's Richard Zoglin put it, "For all its cynicism, the movie managed to convey the racy excitement of its tawdry milieu ... The musical just makes us see the dirt."
But the biggest knock against the stage production was the fact that Success works best as a movie, containing some of the most beautiful cinematography ever seen in film noir (thanks to the camerawork of James Wong Howe).
Whether in color or black and white, New York City has rarely looked more dangerously alluring.
4. La Strada (1954)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/StradaDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/StradaM.jpg
It starred Bernadette Peters.
It was choreographed by Alvin Ailey.
It had talent, but the musical version of La Strada closed after one performance in 1969.
The film shone in black-and-white glory, but Broadway was one road not open to Federico Fellini's Academy Award–winning "blend of myth and surrealism."
New York City, however, wasn't inhospitable to all shows inspired by the legendary Italian director's work: the musical Nine, based on Fellini's 8˝, fared better.
5. Shrek (2001)
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/ShrekDVD.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab358/JamesGrec1/ShrekM.gif
Making Shrek into a stage musical was a bad idea not because it wasn't successful — the show ran for more than a year on Broadway, had a U.S. tour and will have a West End tour in 2011 — but more because no one really likes the idea of a man dressed in a green ogre suit.
Not unless it's Halloween.
TIME's theater critic Richard Zoglin wrote of the stage version, "Without the speed and dexterity of the digital palette, everything that was light and offhand in Shrek on-screen becomes heavy and in-your-face in Shrek onstage."
There's something about animated farts that just seems far more palatable.