CMU School of Drama


Monday, April 22, 2024

Even Melissa Barrera Didn't Know 'Wonka' Was a Musical

www.indiewire.com: “Wonka.” “Mean Girls.” “Joker: Folie à Deux.” “The Color Purple.” Hollywood might not be loud about its recent uptick in big-budget musicals — remember those stories about audiences not realizing that recent “Mean Girls” remake was, in fact, a musical? — but that doesn’t mean the classic genre isn’t still whirling its way through movie theaters.

2 comments:

Reigh Wilson said...

Hollywood is in a very interesting place right now with all of the movie musicals being created. From Wonka, to Mean Girls, to Wicked, while the theater community usually is excited, many modern film audiences are not so much. As such, idiotically, many studios are not showcasing in trailers that these movies are going to be musicals in hopes that more people will see it, which is stupid because then people will be even more upset at movie musicals. Though, I’ve seen a lot of backlash over the Wonka movie as people are upset that they didn’t know it was going to be a musical. While I understand that frustration with a movie like Mean Girls, babe newsflash every Willy Wonka iteration has been a musical. Unless you consider Gene Wilder busting out Pure Imagination in the middle of the movie as naturalistic of the garden variety of films, but that is crazy.

Jasper Gitlitz said...

I’ve definitely also noticed this trend where even though there’s been a rise in movie musicals being released, they’re not being advertised as movie musicals. I’ve seen so many trailers that after I’ve watched them I’ve had to ask myself, wait, isn't this supposed to be a musical? Hollywood has been completely hiding the fact that these movies are musicals and in my opinion, this isn’t good for the movies. While I understand that producers may be afraid that if people know these movies are musicals they’ll be less inclined to go see it, I think they’re failing to understand that many people will only dislike movie musicals more if they’ve been tricked into seeing them. I’ve seen so many people posting about how they were so excited for Wonka or Mean Girls and then being so confused and annoyed after having seen them because they didn’t know they were musicals. I worry that this crowd of people will be turned away from movie musicals even more.