“When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from you’re first cigarette to you’re last dying day” - West Side Story

“The lavish screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera (2005) only deepened the damage. What had been impressive on stage seemed pretentious on screen. With non-stars in the leads and an unimaginative production, the film suffered dismal domestic box office results. The Producers (2005) and Rent (2005) made their way to the big screen with most of their original Broadway cast members on hand, but the results were lifeless and both films were box office failures.”

http://www.musicals101.com/2000film.htm

The movement of musicals from the stage to film has been a hard transfer for fans of the genre to deal with. Although Musical films give way for bigger and better sets and more crisp sound quality, there is nothing like sitting in a theatre and listening to an actress singing live, and being suspended in disbelief as she sings her love for a man. Although, musical films may have damaged some musicals, there is one in particular that it may have done justice. “Sweeney Todd”, the narrative follows the typical musical structure, a man haunted by his past who seeks to right wrongs, there is a bitter sweet love interest and also some rather disturbing underlying storylines, such as paedophilia and gruesome murder. Sweeney Todd, the anti-hero of the musical seeks revenge on Judge Turpin who had him arrested and deported to Australia, on his return he finds that his wife has committed suicide and his daughter is locked away in the Judges house, while the Judge plots to marry the 14 year old girl. It is here that Sweeney Todd plans his revenge to slit the Judges throat with his trusted barber shaving blades. In the stage production the special effects of the throats being slit are either done off stage or from behind a screen, although this may have been effective for when more sensitive audiences were viewing the musical, audiences of today need more gore and grit to get them through a film. In this sense, the fact that “Sweeney Todd” has been renovated into a Musical Film does it some form of justice.

http://www.imdb.com/genre/musical

“Animated musicals were one of the most lucrative screen genres of the 1990s, and several of those feature length cartoons have mutated into Broadway stage versions. While the results may be artistically questionable, they certainly keep millions of people listening to show tunes. The success of the live action films Moulin Rouge (2001), Chicago (2002) and Dreamgirls (2007) show that innovative directors can still make film musicals profitable, fresh and exciting. At the same time, the costly failures It's Delovely (2004), Phantom of the Opera (2005), The Producers (2005) and Rent (2005) prove that Hollywood is still too willing to rely on empty production values rather than on quality material and intelligent presentation.”

http://www.musicals101.com/future.htm

The same goes for “Phantom of the Opera” although the stage production is some what enchanting, the scene where there is a flash back of how the man who turned in to the Phantom dies, where the chandler falls and kills him. In the film we see this vividly however, in the stage production we only see the remains of the chandler scattered across the stage and the impact of this does not have the same effect as the film, where the audience feels sympathy for the character of the unknown man.

Although some musicals that have been turned in to film versions have been great successes there still remains the fact that some of them have been massive flops and not broken even and have ruined the reputation of the Broadway / West End versions.