The Musical Is Back!
2007 marked the full return of the musical to the silver screen. Ever since the late 60’s, the traditional musical has been dead on screen. If you wanted to see people sing while telling a story, you had to look to the stage. Even buying Broadway tickets online was about as convenient as one could hope for in seeing a good old-fashioned musical.
But now, it seems that the trend has ended. We have a new dawn for musicals on film. 2007 brought us some real hits. It brought us a traditional modern Sondheim musical in “Sweeney Todd.” It brought us “Hairspray,” a movie which got remade as a Broadway show which then got remade back into a musical film. It also brought us the musical in the form of the Indie film shot on video in the exceptional “Once.”
We’re also seeing musicals invading the world of television, with the startling success of “High School Musical” and “High School Musical 2.”
We’re also seeing a return to the animated Disney musicals made popular in the early nineties with “The Little Mermaid.” This year the subgenre returned as a spoof of itself in the silly but fun “Enchanted.”
My hope is that with the popularization of the musical on film again we’ll also generate growth in stage productions of musicals as well.
Tags: broadway tickets online, Hairspray, High School Musical, Sweeney Todd