Romeo And Juliet "From Verona to Verona Beach"

   Besides all the popular, big adaptations that I've published about in this blog, there are also a lot of classic plays that have been transferred into the big screen. Most of these productions were written by the one and only, William Shakespeare. The interesting thing about these adaptations is that they have been made multiple times; using the same context of the plays in different eras, modernizing the stories. 

   Probably one of the most famous of all is Romeo & Juliet. The star-crossed lover story has been remade through out the history of film by different actors and even has been twisted to modern themes.

   The most popular adaptation is the 1996 film with celebrity actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Having DiCaprio play Romeo was a great casting choice, allowing his fan base composed of young people watch this old Shakespearian twist. 

  "You won’t find another Shakespeare adaptation that matches Baz Luhrmann’s for bravado and invention"

"Unlike most other cinema adaptations of this play, it really gets the sense that these are teenagers, not old dusty relics. And the soundtrack is killer too."

   Romeo and Juliet is one of the most screened play of all time. Mostly, all of the play's adaptations have grossed well specially the DiCaprio's being the highest grossing Shakespearian film ever. 

URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage-to-film_adaptation

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Stage-to-film adaptation

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Wikipedia

URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet_on_screen

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Romeo and Juliet on screen

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Wikipedia

URL:

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/ten-great-shakespeare-movie-adaptations

Article Title:

The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Movie Adaptations

Website Title:

ShortList Magazine

The Phantom of the Opera

   In 1989, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the musical Phantom Of The Opera. The purchase allowed Andrew Lloyd (composer) to have total artistic control. The film was shot entirely using eight sound stages. 

"Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stunning masterwork is more than the longest-running musical in Broadway history—it’s an international phenomenon that unmasks emotions, leaving audiences everywhere breathless."

"Now is the time to surrender to Broadway’s most haunting love story."

Along with the genius musical compositions of the musical, the cast of Phantom was composed of big names like Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, and Patrick Wilson which not only brought a musical theater audience to the theatres but also their fan bases. 

The film received generally mixed reviews from film critics. Even though 86% of the general audience liked the film, based on 384,463 audience reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, only 33% of the critics enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera, with an average score of 5/10.
In contrasting between the popularity of the Broadway musical, Michael Dequina of Film Threat magazine explained that "it conjures up this unexplainable spell that leaves audiences sad, sentimental, swooning, smiling—in some way transported and moved. Now, in Schumacher's film, that spell lives on."

URL:

http://typeamktg.com/the-phantom-of-the-opera/

Article Title:

The Phantom of the Opera

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Type A Marketing

URL:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293508/

Article Title:

The Phantom of the Opera

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IMDb

URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(2004_film)#Plot

Website Title:

Wikipedia

Marketing Broadway

 "A general rule of thumb on Broadway is that only 30% of shows actually make back their original investment."-Randall Ringer (Narrative Branding)

Here are 3 marketing challenges that musicals have to overcome:

"1. Build an audience for an unknown show.  Also known as Audience Development.

2. Reduce the risk that the average audience member feels when buying a ticket.  For most people Broadway is a big treat, more expensive than a movie.

3. Reduce the risk of the producers who need to maximize their limited marketing budgets."

   

   Now Imagine the different challenges that the musical-film adaptations of these shows have to face. Many of the musical films that have been created in the past decade from famous Broadway musicals are not well known by the general population. Like several films that I have already discussed in this blog, the marketing techniques that the producers chose to use were to assume that the general public already knew that these were musical adaptations. The usual outcome and reaction by the demographic that watched the film for the first time in cinemas was that they had no idea that the whole movie would be singing. Movies like "Into the Woods" and "Sweeney Todd" are perfect examples of this marketing. This became a huge turn off and although the movies were profitable and successful because of their artistic value and celebrity castings, they also have become movies that people would never consider watching again. Many would prefer that these movies were advertised as musicals from the beginning, but would the movies have the same success if they were? 

   Very few musical movies have had the same success and have even been nominated for Academy Awards. For this specific genre the fact of the matter is that there is no right or wrong way to advertise in a right, fair way. Not all movies are like "Les Miserables" that everyone knows but the good thing is that these type of movies are usually casted well and are easily popular with their music and big budgets.

 URL:

http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=musical&sort=moviemeter,asc&title_type=feature

Website Title:

IMDb

   URL:

https://narrativebranding.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/marketing-the-broadway-musical-or-the-people-in-the-picture-on-broadway/

Article Title:

Marketing The Broadway Musical - or - The People In The Picture on Broadway

Website Title:

Narrative Branding

Publication date:

2011-04-26

   

   

Disney Into The Woods

   The famous Tony Award winning musical "Into The Woods" was adapted into a Disney production that premiered on Christmas Day of this past year. In a meeting with a group of high school theatre teachers, the Award-winning composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim revealed the changes in the film to discuss the challenges they faced when it came to artistic censorship in an educational setting. After 27 years of existence, the musical idea was transferred but also edited. To keep the film PG the content of the movie was altered. It followed the Disney guidelines. 
"Disney had concerns over several adult themes in the fairytale musical and that some alterations had been made to the script and score, including the potential removal of the song "Any Moment."
   For the musical fans, some songs were cut and important content remained latent. As for the general public, the film was not advertised as a musical, so part of the demographic was very surprised to pay to see 125 minutes of singing. 

  Although the misconceptions about its content, the film was very well casted. Famous actors like Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Anna Kendrick, and Emily Blunt stared in the movie and caused a huge following for the film. Along with the celebrity talk about it, the producers released  The official teaser trailer on July 31, 2014. A featurette was released showing behind-the-scenes clips and the vocals of Streep, Kendrick, Blunt and others. A second trailer was released on November 6, 2014.

  James Lapine (director) said "After it finally opened on Broadway I thought, “Well, this is perfect for a Disney animated musical movie,” and they weren’t interested. And then somebody optioned it after that a few years later, and it just never took off. I don’t know why."

The producers were very successful in getting a lot of hype for this movie. Yes it was not the clearest advertisement, but with the big famous cast and the Disney aspect to it, the film got many positive reviews and was able to adapt well to the big screen and still keep true to the original Broadway musical. 

URL:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/

Article Title:

Into the Woods

Website Title:

IMDb

URL:

http://deadline.com/2015/01/james-lapine-interview-into-the-woods-stephen-sondheim-1201343652/

Article Title:

Tony Winner James Lapine Finds Himself An Easy Path 'Into The Woods' Of Broadway and Hollywood

Website Title:

Deadline

Publication date:

2015-01-07

URL:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/sondheim-issues-response-following-report-of-disney-into-the-woods-film-cha-322818

Article Title:

Sondheim Issues Response Following Report of Disney Into the Woods Film Changes

Website Title:

Playbill