After spending the 1980's and 1990's as an infrequent presence, the American musical came roaring back to life with the early 2000's double-whammy of Moulin Rouge! and Chicago. Since then, it's been common to get a new live-action musical adapting a famous Broadway musical (see: Nine, Les Miserables, Dreamgirls, Into The Woods, etc.) dropping around the holiday season in order to be a heavy presence around awards season. Though the American musical feature film has been far more common in the past 15 years compared to decades prior, the vast majority of them (save for Enchanted and Across The Universe) have been based on previously existing Broadway musicals or remakes of already existing musical movies.
Those like myself hoping for more original musical fare may just be getting their wish as La La Land totally changed the paradigm for musical movies when it made $151 million domestically, making it the fourth biggest live-action musical ever domestically, and another $293 million overseas, all on a $30 million budget. Just three months after that Damien Chazelle movie premiered, Beauty And The Beast dropped and handily became the biggest musical of all-time, grossing a massive $504 million domestically, a sum that puts it above all but one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies domestically. In the span of just three months, it was demonstrated very clearly that live-action musicals can make even more money than your average superhero movie while original live-action musicals can make massive amounts of coin at the box office.
You know who should be taking advantage of this newfound financial prosperousness for musicals? Why, the studio that, for decades, produced tons of influential musicals that shaped how American cinema approached the very concept of singing-and-dancing movies, MGM! Yes, MGM was the studio responsible for films like Singin' In The Rain, An American In Paris and The Wizard Of Oz and countless others, with such motion pictures frequently being created by The Freed Unit, a team of individuals responsible for dozens of musicals for the studio that included Arthur Freed and Gene Kelly. It was a golden age for musicals that came to a close in 1958 with the release of Gigi.
Since then, MGM has, shockingly, rarely, if ever, gone back to the musical genre, though at least their 21st century avoidance of that typically expensive subgenre of storytelling can be chalked up to the fact that for the first decade of the 21st century they were in such dire financial shape that they went bankrupt in 2010. Shortly thereafter, they got back up on their feet as a production company, one that's actually produced a number of notable movies including a number of remakes of classic MGM movies (RoboCop, Poltergeist, Carrie, etc.) and sequels to older MGM movies (Barbershop: The Next Cut and Creed most notably). Since these guys, in their newly revamped form as a production company with international distribution capabilities and a robust TV division, seem to be quite in touch with their past, why not try to do two or three musicals a year in a similar fashion to the way MGM did in the first half of the 20th century?
Now, if you're thinking I want MGM to produce a remake of Anchors Aweigh with Hugh Jackman, Josh Groban and Renee Elise Goldsberry in the lead roles with a brief cameo by animated character Rick Sanchez, you're mistaken (Though that actually doesn't sound like an awful idea now that I write it down...) No, the idea here would be to do original musicals, ones with plotlines and characters that can resonate with today's audiences just as the classic MGM musicals did with audiences of 30's, 40's and 50's. The mind reels at the possibilities you could do in gathering up talented writers and songwriters and having them make up new musicals that inhabit all kinds of different environments and even genres. Also worth keeping in mind if one is to make these new original musicals; programs like Hamilton show the importance a unique and diverse perspective can bring to the world of musical storytelling and that'd be great to keep in mind for the MGM brass in charge of assembling talent for prospective new musicals.
Plus, imagine being the only studio in town doing original musicals on a regular basis, you'd basically corner the market (similar to how MGM has cornered the market on cheapie YA romance movies like Me Before You and Everything, Everything) on an underserved market that could have a long shelf-life by way of album sales and potential stage show adaptations. The revenue possibilities, just like the creative possibilities, are endless. Plus, it appears that MGM, for the first time in decades, is dipping its toes into the world of musical cinema again with its Valley Girl remake apparently adding musical numbers (and Logan Paul for some reason) to the proceedings.
If that Valley Girl remake ends up making some coin at the box office, wouldn't it be a natural move to build on that movies success by becoming fully committed to producing multiple original musicals each year just like MGM was famous for doing decades ago? While it is true that there are many times in our lives where we must learn to move forward from the past, there are other situations where one must look to the past for guidance on what to do in the future. In the case of MGM, the studio could benefit greatly (both creatively and financially) by concentrating lots of effort on creating plenty of fully original musicals, a rare type of film in the American cinema landscape that, as La La Land showed, can end up making lots of cash. Plus, on a creative level, there's so much storytelling potential in original musicals (the likes of Singin' In The Rain show that clearly) and it'd be great to see more of them out there. Who better to help boost this woefully underutilized subgenre than the studio so famous for making musicals big cinematic moneymakers all those decades ago? C'mon MGM, let's get you back to producing high-quality musicals once more and make icons of this genre like Gene Kelly proud!
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