Why Does Taylor Sell While Broadway Doesn't? Five Kinds of Music Films

At the end of 2023, we saw a surprising amount of music-centred movies… and yet some always seem to get more attention than others. I’m pretty sure everyone knows just how successful Taylor Swift’s concert film has been so far, and I’d also bet that almost nobody has heard of the recent Waitress musical. Given that the new Mean Girls film is also based on a musical, it’s hard not to wonder just why some music films succeed while others don’t. Luckily, I think I’ve figured it out by breaking them down into five categories, ranked from most to least likely to succeed.

1. Celebrity Concert Films

These films are the most loved by far, as Taylor Swift and Beyonce’s recent concert films have proven. It isn’t hard to see why, either. The fact is that by the time this kind of movie is being made, all the hard work has already been done. You already have an all-star cast, aka the singer or band, and the story is the concert, so there’s no plot to write. There are no songs that need to be written. They're already ready, and the audience already knows and loves them. It’s the perfect combination of good music, name recognition, and nonexistent plot - all you need is a camera and a theatre for the fans to come.

2. Musician Biopics

Films in this category are almost the same as those in the first group, except that they focus on the life of an artist who is almost always dead, like in Maestro or Bohemian Rhapsody. While these films need to have some kind of plot, the fact that they're all made fun of for following the same formula is proof enough that it isn’t all that hard. Besides that, these movies get the same benefits of name recognition and popular songs as concert films, plus the added bonus of nostalgia. While there might be a slightly smaller audience than with modern artists, the fact that the fans will do half the promotion on their own makes things easier.

3. Made-For-the-Screen Musicals

This is where music films really start to falter. At this level, the music is integral to the story. It doesn’t just sound good, it has to communicate the plot too, which isn’t as easy as it seems - but fortunately, there’s still dialogue where music fails. The most successful of these films tend to be relatively light stories that embrace the silliness of characters singing all their thoughts, which is probably why so many are kids' films like Wonka or Moana. The more serious and involved the plot is, the more people won’t be able to keep up with the lyrics and will turn it off, as Newsies proved, and shows aimed at older audiences like Galavant and Schmigadoon struggle to connect with non-musical fans no matter how charming they are.

4. Broadway Movie Adaptations

A great genre… Once upon a time, at least. If you look at a list of the best Broadway movie adaptations, you’ll quickly realise that most come from the early 2000s or before, with hits like Chicago, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story. Nowadays, though, we get average to awful adaptations like Les Miserables and … Cats… The actually good adaptations get overlooked, too, like The Colour Purple. The issue with most modern remakes is that they try to bank on name recognition instead of performance quality, making the most unique aspect of these films uniquely bad, and they choose to minimise dialogue as much as possible. Eponine was the standout performance in Les Miserables because she was Broadway-trained - can someone explain why Taylor Swift was the right choice for Cats? Nowadays, these shows tend to have decent visuals and not much more.

5. True Broadway

At last, we reach the worst performer of the categories. It’s quite tragic, really, because real Broadway shows can be spectacular. Unfortunately, they just aren’t as audience-friendly as the other options. There aren’t the nice sets of movie adaptations nor the dialogue support of made-for-screen musicals, and the stars and songs are often only really recognisable to long-time Broadway fans. It’s not just Waitress - mega-hits like Hamilton didn’t go all that far either. The demands on the audience to understand Broadway style, to fill in the sets in their imagination, and to pay close attention to the lyrics is just too much for the casual viewer, not to mention that it probably reminds quite a few viewers of being forced to watch dull plays in school.

Perhaps if more celebrities made the crossover between Broadway and Hollywood like Daniel Radcliffe or Lin-Manuel Miranda. As it stands, though, stage performances aren't likely to gain much popularity any time soon.

In the end, music films seem to have a good chance for success when they have big-name stars, good music, and either no plot or significant dialogue. Poor Broadway only has good music, which seems to be the least important of the three, unfortunately. Mean Girls might be a bit more successful, as it looks like it will have a good deal of dialogue, but then again, even Broadway fans don't like the songs... So do you think anything will ever break the Broadway curse? Is there a perfect cast and show that might repopularise the genre? Let me know in the comments!