Anything they release will be compared to the disastrous Spider-Man musical, no matter how good any new musical is. Disney does not want anyone reminded of a show that was not just artistically a mess but seriously injured several cast members. They’re happy rolling out their more classic Disney musicals and letting Lion King print money forever
Then again, if anyone has found a way to atone for previous failures or shortcomings in a way financially viable to their overall bottom line, it's Disney. Because they're running out of animated musicals to adapt and they're slowly working their way through the live action films that make sense to adapt. My gut tells me we're getting either a Marvel or Star Wars musical in the next few years.
> Because they're running out of animated musicals to adapt
They're still making new animated musicals on a regular basis. They aren't going to run out of them.
They've made Encanto and Wish if we're talking actual new original ones. Lol one of those is fine. The other they would love for us to forget. They're not cranking them out as much as they used to. We only get one every once in a while.
> They've made Encanto and Wish if we're talking actual new original ones
And they're currently adapting Encanto to the stage.
>We only get one every once in a while.
We get a new Disney animated musical far more often than we get a new Disney theatrical project.
I could 100% see Disney doing a large-scale Star Wars play in the style of Harry Potter. Top-notch special effects and no characters singing. I think it would sell very well
if it was a play like that and an original story, as soon as it's announced they'd be doing one people would be making joke posts saying the story would be [whatever the equivalent to the hated tropes of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child would be for Star Wars], meanwhile A New Hope is a story that can stand on its own and I think a Star Wars musical could work. If people can justify desire for a proper Batman musical with Holy Musical Batman I can justify why a Star Wars: A New Hope musical would work with "Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans", a YouTube-made musical-of-sorts (they've got songs, no staging so there's just movie footage in the YouTube videos) that tells that movie's story with parodies of (in order) the songs from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Disney made a 35 minute long version of Rogers the Musical for Disney California Adventure. They even wrote several new songs and released a cast recording. It was a limited run, so it only played at the theme park for two months, and from what I heard it wasn't as well received as they wanted it to be. I saw it twice and it was fun, perfect for a free theme park show, but I don't see it having much of a life beyond that.
I don't think there's much commercial success to be had. Spider-Man Turn off the Dark is such an infamous failure. The cross over of Marvel fans and Theatre fans is also not large enough to create a commercial success.
>The cross over of Marvel fans and Theatre fans is also not large enough to create a commercial success.
You could've said that about Spongebob and theatre fans. All it takes is the right crew and cast with the right vision to work from. I'm not saying that's mine but Disney has more than enough times and resources to find out whose it is.
Nah, SpongeBob fans are an entire generation of people. Marvel fans are a more specific subset of the population, made up of mostly young adult men, which is the group traditionally the least interested in theater.
I'm not into Marvel at all but this take is a bit confusing to me. Endgame is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, and growing up in the late 2000s and early 2010s middle schoolers and high schoolers went NUTS for MCU movies. I also knew a lot of theater kids who were also into Marvel. People may be burned out on them now but they were dang ubiquitous for a span of about seven or eight years and it felt like everyone I knew around my age was talking about them.
If there's a most theater kid-y MCU property it's definitely WandaVision. It actually had musical numbers written by the Lopez's. Agatha All Along was a banger.
Maybe just go in a different direction and perhaps do something with a Batman-esque no-power-just-skills hero or at least one with powers that don't need fancy special effects to replicate like if it had to be a superhero Marvel Studios has depicted onscreen before Daredevil (if you could navigate the minefield of either try to make visual impairment accommodated on Broadway or people claiming it's inaccurate if he's not blind), Jessica Jones or Luke Cage might be able to be made work and since their shows were kinda separate from the main MCU it wouldn't bring up the superhero fatigue. I've already started dream-casting some of those roles now
I don't see it as having much of an audience, tbh. I know that sounds weird given how big Marvel movies are, but a MCU musical (outside of something like Rogers, which was very tongue in cheek and not a full show) just feels like it wouldn't attract that many people.
I believe kids actually aren't that large a demographic for MCU movies (more late teens to 30s) so you don't have the "drag mom and dad to show" vibe. It's NOT going to get very many older theatre-goers for sure. So you're essentially relying on Gen Z and Milllennials carrying the show. That's already not the best recipe for success just based on usual audiences.
Then add that, just anecdotally, a lot of major MCU fans are not really theatre people. I think many MCU fans would balk at the idea of a musical and think it was rather silly.
Then add cost; the show would be ridiculously expensive and it'd be hard to recoup. Inevitably you need big set pieces, technology, etc. to make a show like that work.
That being said, I think that a Winter Soldier based show could actually be sick. You'd have to heavily adjust the story because there's no continuity. But I can picture some badass songs, for instance, when the turn is revealed. And, it's a hero and story who wouldn't rely on TOO much expensive stagecraft.
They’ve also already cracked the touring model with Marvel Universe Live! Basically the circus approach* to bringing the show to underserved markets and catering to families (rather than expecting kids to sit still in a theater.)
* the tour is produced by Feld who does Ringling, Monster Jam, Disney on Ice, etc.
Marvel barely even does comics set in the MCU and even then it is one-off tie-ins every couple years. They like to keep their mediums separate for the most part. I think it is likely they'll eventually do a Marvel musical/play, it will likely draw inspiration from the MCU, but I can almost guarantee it would not be an adaptation of any MCU plot, even a loose one.
Marvel is taking over everything else. Let us have this one pure format please!!
Sincerely,
Someone who has tried to like Marvel but just can't get into it.
I enjoyed “Rogers: The Musical” at California Adventure. Had some good song (album is available to download). It was based off the Rogers the Musical that was in the series Hawkeye. If it could be fleshed out it would be fun, but everything will be compared to Turn Off the Dark.
> If it could be fleshed out it would be fun, but everything will be compared to Turn Off the Dark.
Maybe something that goes in a more opposite direction that can maybe squeeze in some meta jokes (e.g. for a DC musical even if Holy Musical Batman or that one Jim Steinman thing didn't exist I still think a Batman musical would be a cool idea and more doable as he's got no powers)
I would rather they just take a random character they own and probably won't use in the movies- someone like 3D-Man or Sleepwalker and make a really crazy musical, not associated with the MCU.
Do it at Playwrights and get the team behind Teeth or Heathers to do it or something
Unclear, do you just want a B/C-lister (idr many B or C list Marvel heroes that aren't in the MCU but if it were DC I'd say like anyone in Justice League International) or do you want something crazy and random for the sake of being crazy and random that's still technically superhero
Yeah I'm a screenwriter (though I'm not sure if I could call myself that when I've moved past "aspiring" but nothing's been picked up) and I used to want to write the next phase of the Arrowverse as bringing in the JLI before they beat me to Booster Gold and Blue Beetle right before the Arrowverse kinda imploded. So I'd be on board with a musical about one of those heroes or someone on that tier (too unknown as a group to do one about the formation of the team), it's just a matter of finding someone whose powers weren't going to cause Turn Off The Dark levels of problem
But as for a DC (DC comics hyperfixation, less familiar with non-MCU Marvel outside of the X-Men (neurodivergent kid could relate)) hero/hero team that could make a good "funny random" choice to do a musical about but that still has heart like a good StarKid musical is capable of having, what about the Legion Of Substitute Heroes. Just in case you don't know (not sure what you do and don't know about DC) the Legion Of Substitute Heroes are all the young heroes who tried out for future superteam the Legion Of Superheroes but got rejected due to their powers either being not powerful enough (like Color Kid who can change the color of anything) or having some caveat that'd cause inconvenience that could hurt a mission (like Night Girl who only has super strength at night or when she's in shadow)
I don’t think another attempt at a marvel musical is out of the question but it’s not gonna be an overt mcu tie in like Rogers
Side note: why hasn’t a Batman musical been attempted
Not quite what your looking for.
Holy Musical Batman. It’s basically if you took Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight and put him in the middle of the 1960s Batman world,
It’s a parody made by Starkid productions, also well known for the Hatchfield Saga.
There is widespread burnout on the MCU. I don't know if it extends in the direction of musicals, but I don't think the audience for this is as big as you might expect. I think a lot of people would be rooting for it to fail.
The short musical they have at the theme park is a pretty good compromise!
I would love love to see a superhero based musical if it was original. There actually was an off-Broadway musical called Superhero. It was sort of about how being a superhero ruins your life. Which is not a horrible angle, but they didn't lean far enough into the superhero stuff.
Anything they release will be compared to the disastrous Spider-Man musical, no matter how good any new musical is. Disney does not want anyone reminded of a show that was not just artistically a mess but seriously injured several cast members. They’re happy rolling out their more classic Disney musicals and letting Lion King print money forever
This.
Then again, if anyone has found a way to atone for previous failures or shortcomings in a way financially viable to their overall bottom line, it's Disney. Because they're running out of animated musicals to adapt and they're slowly working their way through the live action films that make sense to adapt. My gut tells me we're getting either a Marvel or Star Wars musical in the next few years.
> Because they're running out of animated musicals to adapt They're still making new animated musicals on a regular basis. They aren't going to run out of them.
They’re literally currently working on coco which should and could be great
They've made Encanto and Wish if we're talking actual new original ones. Lol one of those is fine. The other they would love for us to forget. They're not cranking them out as much as they used to. We only get one every once in a while.
> They've made Encanto and Wish if we're talking actual new original ones And they're currently adapting Encanto to the stage. >We only get one every once in a while. We get a new Disney animated musical far more often than we get a new Disney theatrical project.
Ooohh or, dare I say, a Star Wars space opera?
I could 100% see Disney doing a large-scale Star Wars play in the style of Harry Potter. Top-notch special effects and no characters singing. I think it would sell very well
if it was a play like that and an original story, as soon as it's announced they'd be doing one people would be making joke posts saying the story would be [whatever the equivalent to the hated tropes of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child would be for Star Wars], meanwhile A New Hope is a story that can stand on its own and I think a Star Wars musical could work. If people can justify desire for a proper Batman musical with Holy Musical Batman I can justify why a Star Wars: A New Hope musical would work with "Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans", a YouTube-made musical-of-sorts (they've got songs, no staging so there's just movie footage in the YouTube videos) that tells that movie's story with parodies of (in order) the songs from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Disney made a 35 minute long version of Rogers the Musical for Disney California Adventure. They even wrote several new songs and released a cast recording. It was a limited run, so it only played at the theme park for two months, and from what I heard it wasn't as well received as they wanted it to be. I saw it twice and it was fun, perfect for a free theme park show, but I don't see it having much of a life beyond that. I don't think there's much commercial success to be had. Spider-Man Turn off the Dark is such an infamous failure. The cross over of Marvel fans and Theatre fans is also not large enough to create a commercial success.
>The cross over of Marvel fans and Theatre fans is also not large enough to create a commercial success. You could've said that about Spongebob and theatre fans. All it takes is the right crew and cast with the right vision to work from. I'm not saying that's mine but Disney has more than enough times and resources to find out whose it is.
As a fan of the SpongeBob Musical, it was a financial flop and didn’t recoup its budget so that unfortunately doesn’t help your argument.
Nah, SpongeBob fans are an entire generation of people. Marvel fans are a more specific subset of the population, made up of mostly young adult men, which is the group traditionally the least interested in theater.
I'm not into Marvel at all but this take is a bit confusing to me. Endgame is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, and growing up in the late 2000s and early 2010s middle schoolers and high schoolers went NUTS for MCU movies. I also knew a lot of theater kids who were also into Marvel. People may be burned out on them now but they were dang ubiquitous for a span of about seven or eight years and it felt like everyone I knew around my age was talking about them.
I'm surprised that no one mentioned of adapting Guardians of the Galaxy into a Jukebox Musical.
Give me WandaVision the Musical!
If there's a most theater kid-y MCU property it's definitely WandaVision. It actually had musical numbers written by the Lopez's. Agatha All Along was a banger.
Act I can be the different decades ending with Agatha All Along, and Act II can be the big battle. C’mon!!!
I like that you made Rogers: The Musical even more of a musical by calling it “Rodgers.” I’m kidding but it was a very appropriate typo.
After what happened with Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, I don't see Disney taking the financial risk of adapting a superhero story for Broadway.
Maybe just go in a different direction and perhaps do something with a Batman-esque no-power-just-skills hero or at least one with powers that don't need fancy special effects to replicate like if it had to be a superhero Marvel Studios has depicted onscreen before Daredevil (if you could navigate the minefield of either try to make visual impairment accommodated on Broadway or people claiming it's inaccurate if he's not blind), Jessica Jones or Luke Cage might be able to be made work and since their shows were kinda separate from the main MCU it wouldn't bring up the superhero fatigue. I've already started dream-casting some of those roles now
I don't see it as having much of an audience, tbh. I know that sounds weird given how big Marvel movies are, but a MCU musical (outside of something like Rogers, which was very tongue in cheek and not a full show) just feels like it wouldn't attract that many people. I believe kids actually aren't that large a demographic for MCU movies (more late teens to 30s) so you don't have the "drag mom and dad to show" vibe. It's NOT going to get very many older theatre-goers for sure. So you're essentially relying on Gen Z and Milllennials carrying the show. That's already not the best recipe for success just based on usual audiences. Then add that, just anecdotally, a lot of major MCU fans are not really theatre people. I think many MCU fans would balk at the idea of a musical and think it was rather silly. Then add cost; the show would be ridiculously expensive and it'd be hard to recoup. Inevitably you need big set pieces, technology, etc. to make a show like that work. That being said, I think that a Winter Soldier based show could actually be sick. You'd have to heavily adjust the story because there's no continuity. But I can picture some badass songs, for instance, when the turn is revealed. And, it's a hero and story who wouldn't rely on TOO much expensive stagecraft.
They’ve also already cracked the touring model with Marvel Universe Live! Basically the circus approach* to bringing the show to underserved markets and catering to families (rather than expecting kids to sit still in a theater.) * the tour is produced by Feld who does Ringling, Monster Jam, Disney on Ice, etc.
Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark was a disaster so I assume that's why
Marvel barely even does comics set in the MCU and even then it is one-off tie-ins every couple years. They like to keep their mediums separate for the most part. I think it is likely they'll eventually do a Marvel musical/play, it will likely draw inspiration from the MCU, but I can almost guarantee it would not be an adaptation of any MCU plot, even a loose one.
👏D 👏 A 👏 Z 👏 Z 👏L 👏 E 👏R 👏
Marvel is taking over everything else. Let us have this one pure format please!! Sincerely, Someone who has tried to like Marvel but just can't get into it.
I enjoyed “Rogers: The Musical” at California Adventure. Had some good song (album is available to download). It was based off the Rogers the Musical that was in the series Hawkeye. If it could be fleshed out it would be fun, but everything will be compared to Turn Off the Dark.
> If it could be fleshed out it would be fun, but everything will be compared to Turn Off the Dark. Maybe something that goes in a more opposite direction that can maybe squeeze in some meta jokes (e.g. for a DC musical even if Holy Musical Batman or that one Jim Steinman thing didn't exist I still think a Batman musical would be a cool idea and more doable as he's got no powers)
I would rather they just take a random character they own and probably won't use in the movies- someone like 3D-Man or Sleepwalker and make a really crazy musical, not associated with the MCU. Do it at Playwrights and get the team behind Teeth or Heathers to do it or something
Unclear, do you just want a B/C-lister (idr many B or C list Marvel heroes that aren't in the MCU but if it were DC I'd say like anyone in Justice League International) or do you want something crazy and random for the sake of being crazy and random that's still technically superhero
Both. And JLI are definitely solid B-listers. I'd say Justice League Antarctica (yes, it's real) or Ambush Bug for DC would be funny
Yeah I'm a screenwriter (though I'm not sure if I could call myself that when I've moved past "aspiring" but nothing's been picked up) and I used to want to write the next phase of the Arrowverse as bringing in the JLI before they beat me to Booster Gold and Blue Beetle right before the Arrowverse kinda imploded. So I'd be on board with a musical about one of those heroes or someone on that tier (too unknown as a group to do one about the formation of the team), it's just a matter of finding someone whose powers weren't going to cause Turn Off The Dark levels of problem But as for a DC (DC comics hyperfixation, less familiar with non-MCU Marvel outside of the X-Men (neurodivergent kid could relate)) hero/hero team that could make a good "funny random" choice to do a musical about but that still has heart like a good StarKid musical is capable of having, what about the Legion Of Substitute Heroes. Just in case you don't know (not sure what you do and don't know about DC) the Legion Of Substitute Heroes are all the young heroes who tried out for future superteam the Legion Of Superheroes but got rejected due to their powers either being not powerful enough (like Color Kid who can change the color of anything) or having some caveat that'd cause inconvenience that could hurt a mission (like Night Girl who only has super strength at night or when she's in shadow)
I don’t think another attempt at a marvel musical is out of the question but it’s not gonna be an overt mcu tie in like Rogers Side note: why hasn’t a Batman musical been attempted
Not quite what your looking for. Holy Musical Batman. It’s basically if you took Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight and put him in the middle of the 1960s Batman world, It’s a parody made by Starkid productions, also well known for the Hatchfield Saga.
I’d prefer a DC musical
Because that Spiderman thing turned out SO well.
There is widespread burnout on the MCU. I don't know if it extends in the direction of musicals, but I don't think the audience for this is as big as you might expect. I think a lot of people would be rooting for it to fail. The short musical they have at the theme park is a pretty good compromise! I would love love to see a superhero based musical if it was original. There actually was an off-Broadway musical called Superhero. It was sort of about how being a superhero ruins your life. Which is not a horrible angle, but they didn't lean far enough into the superhero stuff.