^^In a sense they have come back. After about 20 years with hardly any musical films being made, there have been quite few in the last 2 or 3 years.
Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Phantom Of The Opera, Hairspray, Chicago, Nine, Dreamgirls, Sweeney Todd and Mama Mia! come immediately to mind.
But few of them have been critical and/or financial hits.
(There has been some talk about a remake of My Fair Lady, which I feel is a terrible idea.)
And of course there are the Disney animated films and their High School Musical series.
But the problem is:
1) There are almost no young(ish) composers or lyricists who write the kind of songs known as standards. Broadway has had very, very few original traditional hit musicals in the past 4 or 5 years. Even Sondheim's and Lloyd-Webber's latest shows have flopped.
The overwhelming number of musical productions on Broadway for some time now have been revivals of traditional book musicals from the 30s to the 70s.
And those original musicals which have opened are pretty lame for the most part. (Part of the problem is that it takes $ 5-10 million to open a new musical.)
2) It takes very special skills to direct, choreogpraph and film a movie musical, and there aren't many people around who have those skills any more.
And Hollywood studos are pretty much only interested in making films that appeal to teenagers and people who are in their early 20s. This is not the audience for a tradtional musical.
Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Phantom Of The Opera, Hairspray, Chicago, Nine, Dreamgirls, Sweeney Todd and Mama Mia! come immediately to mind.
But few of them have been critical and/or financial hits.
(There has been some talk about a remake of My Fair Lady, which I feel is a terrible idea.)
And of course there are the Disney animated films and their High School Musical series.
But the problem is:
1) There are almost no young(ish) composers or lyricists who write the kind of songs known as standards. Broadway has had very, very few original traditional hit musicals in the past 4 or 5 years. Even Sondheim's and Lloyd-Webber's latest shows have flopped.
The overwhelming number of musical productions on Broadway for some time now have been revivals of traditional book musicals from the 30s to the 70s.
And those original musicals which have opened are pretty lame for the most part. (Part of the problem is that it takes $ 5-10 million to open a new musical.)
2) It takes very special skills to direct, choreogpraph and film a movie musical, and there aren't many people around who have those skills any more.
And Hollywood studos are pretty much only interested in making films that appeal to teenagers and people who are in their early 20s. This is not the audience for a tradtional musical.
