Movie musicals are becoming incredibly popular and a captivating way to incorporate music into storytelling. Major movie musicals like “Frozen,” “Tangled” and “Moana” grossed hundreds of millions in their lifetime due to their popularity among children and the high-quality animation and music scores that Disney is great at putting out. While Disney has put out many successful movie musicals, other famous ones like “La La Land,” “Hairspray” and “Mamma Mia!” have made just as much of a prominent cultural impact. Due to their impact on both movie and musical pop culture, many production companies are releasing movie musicals in hopes of doing successfully at the box office. Still, the public’s interest in movie adaptations of stories is beginning to decline.
Including musical numbers in movies provides another source of entertainment, music, to a film that captivates the viewer; they are another way for characters to portray an emotion or be impacted by an event. These aspects make many viewers enjoy movie musicals, and the film industry has produced many musical adaptations of stories throughout these last few years.
Recent reboots in theaters like “West Side Story,” “The Color Purple” and “Mean Girls” have been getting criticized by netizens due to mostly the overall distaste for the unnecessary need for a musical feature to a story that is fine without it.
These netizens prove an excellent point because, honestly speaking, reboots are becoming mainstream for film and TV show producers and writers; it’s starting to become boring. Film is slowly losing creativity by producers making the poor decision of making a movie from years ago into a movie musical. This isn’t meant to come off as anti-musical, but I want to pose this question: is it really necessary to have a musical adaptation of a film that is already great as is?
Adding musical numbers to a film can make a lighthearted narrative out of the original story and also spoil the aspects of the movie for viewers who find the singing too excessive in musicals. Disregarding reboots, movie musicals still have negative reviews since everyone is trying to produce the most revolutionary musical film. This alone takes away the unique values of this genre; film reviewers and viewers are becoming more critical if a movie musical isn’t executed correctly or doesn’t outshine other ones in the industry.
A lot of movie musicals are made with a business-driven objective besides trying to mold a movie into what’s in demand at that moment. Famous songs from movie musicals bring more profit and more attention to the film. Songs like “Seasons of Love” from “Rent” and “Cups” from “Pitch Perfect” blew up in popularity, giving these films much more attention and influence. These films did well alone, but these songs are known even by people who have not watched these films, which proves the impact of having great, catchy songs included in a film — from a business perspective. These types of movies also give a lot of opportunity to actors who sing and dance in addition to their acting career. Participating in this genre of film can further their careers in music and the Broadway scene.
The main takeaway from this isn’t to bash movie musicals but to emphasize that not everything has to be rebooted or created into a movie musical. While many have had a significant cultural impact, they are becoming less enjoyable for those like myself who appreciate movies that bring a unique twist. Many movie musicals have this quality but throughout the past few years, producers have become lazy about creating refreshing stories with great songs. Reboots are the norm now, especially in the musical theatre scene. This is probably why there’s such a high production rate for them, although many people seem to reject this idea.
