Thoughts I Had... While Looking at Posters for Three New Musicals
Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 10:30PM You know how this works. Thoughts as they come to me without self censorship to speed up the blogging...
Musical No. 1 INTO THE WOODS
• This is how I look in the morning when I accidentally fall asleep with a wig on
• "Be careful what you wish for" - they pay people to write these taglines you know but why not save money on the budget and just use song lyrics. It doesn't get much better than Sondheim lyrics. Wouldn't "Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell..." be more intriguing / and delightfully faithful. Say what you will about Les Miserables (2012) -- and you have -- but one of the best things about its very successful campaign ($441 million plus worldwide) is that they just used song titles for their character posters
• "Be Careful what you wish for..." as Meryl climbs out of the poster at you, also adds an unfortunate meta layer. Be careful that you ask for Meryl Streep to be in every moviee because she WILL be!
• Meryl looks a bit like "Yoga Jones" here, yes?
• How much would they charge The Witch for a mani/pedi?
• Christmas. UGH. I am impatient. I used to L-O-V-E going to movies on Christmas day. Now I want all holiday movies to open on Thanksgiving.
• Since The Witch is Rapunzel's mother, we can directly compare her to Donna Murphy's Mother Gothel in Tangled if we'd like...
And then transpose those feelings on to the fact that Donna Murphy is the last major star to play The Witch on the New York stage and then we can have feelings about Broadway stars not getting movie roles. If we'd like...
• So many Broadway stars should be more famous. Like a certain Cinderella...
• Bet you a handful of magic beans that this is not the final poster but just #1 in a series of character posters that will hit in 3...2...
• Weird star contracts requiring Meryl first and "And" Johnny Depp "As" last ruin the alphabetization! So now it just looks like Anna Kendrick isn't as famous as James Corden, which, no.
• I'm so tired of the teal/blue & orange/yellow color schemes. It's like the only aesthetic allowed
Musical No. 2 ANNIE
• My god that's a lot of red, red, red, red, red!
• Everytime that Cameron Diaz wears animal prints now I'm going to have awful flashbacks to one of the worst movies i've ever seen. I mean did it have to be Cheetah print again? This is uneccessarily cruel.
• So weird that two musicals are going to be fighting it out at the box office for family's Christmas dollars. But weird in a good way
• True story: I used to hate Rose Byrne and now I kind of look forward to seeing what she does with each of her roles. This is a very new phenomenon dating back only to Bridesmaids with Neighbors being the reminder that Bridesmaids wasn't a fluke
• Sandy's all "don't blame me if you hate it"
Musical No. 3 INTERSTELLAR
Wait, what? THERE'S NO SINGING????? Damn you Chris Nolan! (I really wanted Hathaway and Chastain to sing a duet while floating in space like Barbarella)
Reader Comments (20)
I would be more excited to see Annie if Cameron Diaz was her Counselor character instead of Miss Hannigan.
After the last batch of posters which were mostly just off, I like the ITW poster. It says witch, woods, scary, fantasy.......I have an idea of what the movie is about. I don't like that more and more, it looks like they only trust Streep to bring people in. That's a lot of weight on one person's shoulders and being an ensemble show, it could backfire. I so dread this film. Especially Depp as the wolf. The song the wolf sings is so beautiful and far beyond his limited talent. I appreciate all the points you bring up.
This is so clearly photoshopped that you wonder if these people ever met each other (Really? A cast where everyone is the same height except the kid?). It looks cheap.......which was my reaction to the trailer as well. I think the dog is lucky he isn't billed. Plus, while everyone knows this show, it really isn't clear who is which character, especially the two men..
It looks like an out take from the first Star Ways sequel or an out take from Inception. And while I know it isn't, he looks more like Paul Walker than MM. And Nat, perhaps they will do the Mountain Duet from Chess. This poster tells me nothing about the film except snow. The text is hard to read against the background as well.
Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain singing together like in Barbarella? Are they naked?
That's a pretty cool poster for Into the Woods. I'm still skeptical about the movie (it being a Disney movie and all), but at least that poster gives it a creepy, "danger in the woods" type feel which kind of matches the musical's tone, since it's all about that frightening concept known as growing up.
The poster for Annie: a big NO. I'm hoping it's one of those cases where the marketing sucks, but the movie will actually be something interesting (I loved Quvenzhane in Beasts of the Southern Wild, so I only want good things for her career). I recently watched the Disney channel telefilm and am a little bit obsessed with it. Kathy Bates is terrific as Hannigan, Victor Garber is cuddly in the best way possible as Daddy Warbucks, Alan Cumming and Kristen Chenoweth are delightful as the conniving couple and I wish this role had made a star out of little Alicia Morton (her rendition of Tomorrow is probably my favorite rendition of that song, specifically because it's a very grounded rendition). You'll also spot a very young Sarah Hyland as Molly.
Funny thing, that telefilm was directed by Rob Marshall (pre-Chicago) and here we are, with a Rob Marshall film competing with Annie (considering he directed it once). Funny how that happens.
I'm 100% with you on Rose Byrne - used to hate her, but her greatness in Bridesmaids (I would nominate her alongside Melissa McCarthy that year for Best Supporting Actress) and in Neighbors made me rethink how I feel about her, and that doesn't happen often (or at all): once I hate an actor, I'm probably gonna hate him/her forever.
Oooh- I like your Into the Woods tagline. I'd also offer up "Anything Can Happen In The Woods" or the relatively obvious "Once Upon a Time..."
If there are character posters, I hope there's one of the Christine Baranski and the stepsisters that says one of my favorite lines from the show: "Never Wear Mauve to a Ball."
Now it's clear the Meryl is going lead and we're not having that "everybody is supporting" campaign. Is it a good idea? Because Nine had one good thing and that was Marion Cotillard's performance and they stopped her from being nominated by campaigning lead.
The photoshop in Annie's poster is kind of crappy, but all I really want to talk about is that Into the Woods poster. Can't it be more horrendous?
All three of these posters are kind of eyesores, tbh. Yikes.
Nathaniel, will you be doing a fun end-of-festivals podcast wrap up/pickup like the Cannes one a few months back with Nick? I'd love to hear what resonated with you strongly after all is said and done. Was it Reese recreating Into The Wild or Julianne recreating Away From Her or Felicity Jones just recreating...things?
(I was gonna say something meaner about Jones because she's such an empty actress but alas, I haven't seen this tour de farce yet)
I predict all of you are going to be disappointed by Into the Woods. It feels like a flop.
Knowing Marshall's track record i feel this is gonna flop,maybe a supporting nod unless the bad buzz is just buzz.
Eh, cal roth, don't even remind me that they threw a nomination Penelope Cruz' way when they had a brilliant and actually supporting portrayal from Marion Cotillard to choose from.
In a movie filled with practically cameos, only Marion stood out. Oscar voters messes up. But so did who campaigned her as lead. Were they crazy?
Every time I think about the "Into the Woods" film adaptation I think about all of the actresses with Broadway pedigrees who would have been far better choices for the Witch.
I don't believe that the "Annie" poster could be more uninspired if it tried. What. The. Hell. If the studio had to sell the movie based on the strength of that alone, one would be hard pressed to find buyers.
Finally, I don't care about "Interstellar."
Having just seen a delightful production of Sweeney Todd this weekend at the Lyric Stage, which I have never seen live before, and then thinking about the Burton film, all I have to say is that some musicals SHOULD NEVER BE MADE INTO MOVIES. PERIOD.
Really not excited for ITW. The same guy who did the Maleficent poster for Disney probably did this one as well. Ugh. It should have the three leads.
And the dog in the Annie poster--hope it's not an Akita. Most of that breed are not nice dogs, especially around children. I miss the original Sandy. Also, would have loved to see Lisa Kudrow reprising her role from Hotel for Dogs as Miss Hannigan. Who is Bobby Cannavale supposed to be? The same character played by Tim Curry? He looks too spiffy here.
Anne Hathaway should definitely do another musical. Caught the video with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and another woman named Lorraine singing a lovely French song. So nice.
"perhaps they will do the Mountain Duet from Chess"
@Henry That would be glorious!
@Th One of my all time favorite shows--such a shame the book is so dated now. I managed to see the original London production with Miss P herself. Michael Bennet was genius and the Mountain Duet was perfection. NY really missed out on that one.
I like the ITW poster. *shrug*
That's the witch saying: "Don't f*ck with me, bitches."
Tbh, I expected worse. It's Disney all over it.
Though it's actually astonishing Disney pushes Meryl that strongly!
FYI Meryl wanted to play the roles of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and the role of Miss Baltimore Crabs (love that song!) in Hairspray, so she must be really happy to finally getting a (lead) part in a Sondheim musical.
"Into the Woods" looks like a horror movie not a musical. I'm already tired of "Annie" they've been running the trailer since last year - the poster looks generically bland- "Interstellar" could be a bit more imaginative- I love the posters from the 1960s- 70s which made even bad movies look interesting.