One of the best parts of going to the movies, besides grabbing popcorn and a good drink, is the trailers. Trailers give you an insight into what is to come to the movie world. But what if what they show you in the trailer isn’t exactly what shows up in the movie? Movie Musicals such as The Color Purple, Wonka, and Mean Girls are doing just that.
The Color Purple, a beloved and critically acclaimed novel, made its way to the Broadway stage in 2005 through a musical adaptation produced by Oprah Winfrey. The musical was then revived in 2015, winning the show a Tony award for Best Revival of a Musical. The trailer for the new 2023 film adaptation of the musical looked like a retelling of the original novel with its same complex characters. When sitting down in theaters to watch it, however, many were surprised to find the movie was not a retelling of the classic novel but in fact was a movie adaptation of the 2005 musical, with singing, dancing and full spectacle production that was never shown once in trailers.
When Wonka came out, social media users were surprised to see Timotheé Chalamet, playing the role of Willy Wonka, singing and dancing to an original score made for the movie.
Another movie musical, the 2024 Mean Girls, was advertised as a mix between the original 2004 movie starring Lindsey Lohan and the 2018 Broadway musical. However, the film starre Reneé Rapp, who played Regina George in the Broadway production between 2019 and 2020, and thus, the promise that the film would not be a run-of-the-mill movie musical turned out to be false.
If all these movies end up having the same number of dance numbers as any other movie musical, why are editors pulling the plug on music in their trailers? It could be the fact that movie musicals have done much worse at the box office over the years. It is possible that omitting the music numbers from the trailers will draw a wider audience, particularly of moviegoers with an aversion to movie musicals. This is a tactic advertisers for new movies have been using for a long time.
It’s true that movie musicals have never been the most popular genre in film history, but the people who walked into a theater this past year looking for a family fun movie might have had a different reaction to seeing a movie with more dancing than talking.
