THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

[jo]

The New York Times writes about the final show of the RINGLING BROS and BARNUM & BAILEY Circus!


www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/nyregion/ringling-brothers-circus-takes-final-bow.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Excerpts --

The article ends, thus :

As the show finally ended, the backstage crew members, the animal handlers, the performers’ small children and even the train engineers joined the performers on the arena floor, standing with the costumed dancers. They sang a round of “Auld Lang Syne.”

But before that, the people in the crowd rose to their feet for a prolonged ovation. The ringmaster cheered back at them, “You mean the circus isn’t antiquated?” The crowd roared. “You mean you love the circus?” he said. The noise was deafening.

It would have been a nice touch if the cast of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN had been invited to see the final performance. But too bad Hugh had to travel to Japan ( for another audience-pleasing commitment, as he unveils the last premiere of LOGAN)!

Maybe the sense of nostalgia for what was once one of the most popular entertainment in world culture ( yes, the elephants used to come from Asia...and the some of the spinetingling acrobatic and precision acts from China...and the trapeze artists had European roots) would find a way to resonate when THE GREATEST SHOWMAN makes a bow!




Jo

[jo]

This clip from CinemaCon was taken down by the FOX police from YouTube

But someone uploaded it on another platform --

Let's hope we get a real teaser and/or trailer soon


Jo

[jo]

This is the filmsite which thinks highly of the forthcoming THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, in the early forecasts for OSCAR hopefuls ( by Nathaniel R) --

thefilmexperience.net/blog/2017/5/19/hugh-jackmans-pt-barnum-kicks-off-the-party-in-greatest-show.html?lastPage=true&postSubmitted=true

Welcome
The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. Gemini, Cinephile, Actressexual. All material herein is written and copyrighted by Nathaniel or a member of our team as noted.


Hugh Jackman's P.T. Barnum Kicks Off The Party in "Greatest Showman" Images
Friday, May 19, 2017 at 11:00AM
by Daniel Crooke 


Between stints of slicing and dicing the big screen – let alone the ADR booth – as Wolverine, Hugh Jackman’s carved out a comfortable career for himself over the years as a jack-of-all-trades song-and-dance man. In fact, his greatest feats of awards success have all revolved around his fleet feet and tenacious tenor: a Tony Award for The Boy From Oz, his sole Oscar nomination for Les Miserables, and, of course, his instantly iconic turn hosting the 2008 Academy Awards. In light of Entertainment Weekly’s recently released photo spread from his upcoming P.T. Barnum (original!) musical The Greatest Showman, the question begs itself. Will Jackman land once more with Oscar for his latest tripping of the light fantastic?

More images and info after the jump... 

Stuck in development for nearly a decade, The Greatest Showman finally graces theaters later this year on Christmas Day with an all-star cast including Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Rebecca Ferguson. Following the infamous circus maestro’s rags-to-riches story from childhood to his first career successes, and set to a soundtrack of pop-influenced songs by recently Academy-ordained (and Tony nominated) La La Land duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, it sounds like we’re in for some prototypical biopic structure but with a fresh, vibrant hook. 


By the looks of the Lite-Brite costumes, cotton candy hairstyles, and bold visual flair in these photos, first-time director Michael Gracey aims to exhume the salacious, otherworldly realm of the circus’s mid-19th entury roots without sparing an ounce of the razzle-dazzle. While Jackman’s teal vest and striped trousers look a bit too Fantastic Beasts for me, what do you make of these first four images from The Greatest Showman’s three-ring circus?

The feedback section gives us a flavor on how the movie might be received, simply based on the initial photos released by FOX.

[jo]

When I first saw this online reaction clip based on the EW feature ( I have seen Grace Randolph in the LOGAN initial reaction clips from her - sorry, she does try to be uber-witty at times ) -- I ignored it because she talks about Zendaya in the early part ( maybe she is a fan of Zendaya)...but it looks like she discusses her first impressions of the initial photos and how they create an initial picture/profile of the movie. If you want to see her reactions to the photographic images and the message they convey, please fastforward to 1'45" --



I laughed out loud when she said that Hugh's look in that COME ALIVE number ( shown at CinemaCon) does not look like the handsome-charismatic-comehither image of Jackman! She wished it was a better image -- she said it looked like a rehearsal photo

First, it is a biopic -- maybe they tried to make Hugh look a little closer to the real Barnum ( who was not a real goodlooker)? But I think it was probably a badly shot clip, too Because we have already seen other photos on the set -- and he looks like Hugh Jackman all the time

She did say that it looks like this movie ( similar to LaLaLand and Beauty & The Beast) will create " movie magic". She is not critical of the inexperience of Michael Gracey and mentions his background. She was discussing the movie in the context of colorful period pieces and past musicals ( the technicolor past, as she calls the period of great musicals). She did mention that it might evoke Moulin Rouge but believes it will be quite different.

Hopefully, when the first teaser and/or trailer comes out -- we will get a better feel of the characters and the storyline.

Jo

[jo]

A pair of tickets could be great stocking stuffers for adults...and the not-so-adults

[jo]

No offense meant, but is Zac hoping that his role in GREATEST SHOWMAN is his opportunity to be taken more seriously, after his recent movies have not been well-received by the critics. Early reviews for his BAYWATCH movie ( about 20-25% in ) are a dismal 14%. It is expected to do fairly well at the box office ( maybe with a guilty pleasure appeal due to its former life on TV)... maybe also due to box office king Dwayne Johnson current popularity and Zac's own fandom. The "Will Watch" score on RT is very high.

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baywatch_2017

I have also been hoping that any success of Baywatch ( at least at the box office) will translate into future goodwill for SHOWMAN because of Zac!


Jo

[qwerty]

May 23, 2017 20:53:08 GMT -5 jo said:

No offense meant, but is Zac hoping that his role in GREATEST SHOWMAN is his opportunity to be taken more seriously, after his recent movies have not been well-received by the critics. Early reviews for his BAYWATCH movie ( about 20-25% in ) are a dismal 14%. It is expected to do fairly well at the box office ( maybe with a guilty pleasure appeal due to its former life on TV)... maybe also due to box office king Dwayne Johnson current popularity and Zac's own fandom. The "Will Watch" score on RT is very high.

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baywatch_2017

I have also been hoping that any success of Baywatch ( at least at the box office) will translate into future goodwill for SHOWMAN because of Zac!


Jo

Zac has been in too many awful comedies lately and he recently said his last comedy will be baywatch. The Greatest Showman will be his safety net of his career if it becomes successful. I'm confident that TGS will help both Hugh's and Zac's careers

[jo]

Interesting image related to the movie ( posted by one of the ensemble) --



I thought the postcard is historical -- but it is really designed for the movie ( "The Greatest Showman"). Was the backpack-looking item and the postcard a memorabilia gift to the cast/crew because the postcard refers to "2016 to 2017" ( which was the filming period of the movie)?


EDIT : A slightly different shot of the gift --




I do like the red icon of Barnum!

[jo]

Don't you get tired of hearing this again and again

Hey, Hugh -- you're the best!

[jo]

May 23, 2017 20:53:08 GMT -5 jo said:

No offense meant, but is Zac hoping that his role in GREATEST SHOWMAN is his opportunity to be taken more seriously, after his recent movies have not been well-received by the critics. Early reviews for his BAYWATCH movie ( about 20-25% in ) are a dismal 14%. It is expected to do fairly well at the box office ( maybe with a guilty pleasure appeal due to its former life on TV)... maybe also due to box office king Dwayne Johnson current popularity and Zac's own fandom. The "Will Watch" score on RT is very high.

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/baywatch_2017

I have also been hoping that any success of Baywatch ( at least at the box office) will translate into future goodwill for SHOWMAN because of Zac!


Jo

Update from The Hollywood Reporter --

Box Office: 'Pirates 5' Heads for $75M-$80M; 'Baywatch' Taking on Water
8:33 AM PDT 5/26/2017 by Pamela McClintock 


Johnny Depp returns as Captain Jack Sparrow in Memorial Day tentpole 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,' while the R-rated 'Baywatch' stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is easily winning the Friday box office race, while the waters are choppy for Baywatch, starring man-of-the-moment Dwayne Johnson alongside Zac Efron, according to early returns for Memorial Day weekend.

Pirates 5, returning Johnny Depp in the lead role as the zany Captain Jack Sparrow, is on course to earn roughly $24 million Friday from 4,276 theaters, including $5.5 million in Thursday evening previews. Box-office observers believe the film could hit a $80 million for the four-day holiday weekend, although Disney insiders are being more conservative and suggesting in mid-$70 million range.

Although a good start, that would mark the lowest opening of any title in the series save for the first film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Franchise fatigue among U.S. consumers is a huge concern for Hollywood. Pirates 5 cost Disney more than $200 million to make before a major marketing spend, and the studio is counting on a huge showing overseas, where Pirates opens in every corner of the globe this weekend, save for Japan...

The franchise has never been a favorite of critics, outside of the first film, with Dead Men Tell No Tales currently sporting a 30 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, roughly on par with the last installment, 2011's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Baywatch, directed by Seth Gordon, is faring worse among critics. The R-rated film adaptation of the classic television show currently has a 19 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Paramount and Skydance decided to get a jump on the holiday weekend and launch Baywatch on Thursday. The movie grossed a disappointing $4.5 million for the day from 3,647 theaters and will need to pick up the pace in a major way if it is to even hit $30 million for the five days.

Early returns show Baywatch grossing an estimated $7 million on Friday for a lackluster five-day debut of $29 million. And it could tie with holdover Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for the Friday-Monday frame with $24 million. Heading into the holiday weekend, pre-release tracking had suggested the comedy would clear $40 million, although some services lowered their estimates to $37 million this week.

Audiences bestowed Baywatch with a B+ CinemaScore. The movie skewed slightly female (52 percent) on Thursday, while 45 percent of ticket buyers were under the age of 25.

Baywatch, costing under than $70 million to produce before marketing, also stars Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Jon Bass, Kelly Rohrbach and Ilfenesh Hadera. It doesn't debut overseas until June 2...

And look at what Ain't It Cool News ( the home of the fanboys) said in its review conclusion --

Feel free to set fire to your money rather than spend it on this.

Hope his role in THE GREATEST SHOWMAN will draw in more favorable reviews for Zac's portrayal!


But it looks like there may not be any success spillover from BAYWATCH to THE GREATEST SHOWMAN in a big way, although it is likely that a female-skewed audience will likely be there for Zac and The Greatest Showman!

LOL - will Wolverine fans be there for Hugh for The Greatest Showman? LOGAN has been very successful ( 92% at RT and $ 607 million, without Japan) but will the fans of that movie also follow Hugh to a movie musical?

Maybe the wives/girlfriends who accompanied the husbands/Boyfriends for LOGAN have the turn now to be accompanied to see a movie musical

Jo

[jo]

Disappointment over BAYWATCH tanking at the box office --

Hope going back to his musical roots will do it for Zac!

[jo]

Forbes.com, via Scott Mendelson, continues to put in a good word for the forthcoming THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, in this article second-guessing FOX strategy as a film studio --

www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/06/01/20th-century-fox-is-branding-itself-as-a-movie-studio-for-grown-ups/#49855ce74985

Jun 1, 2017 @ 11:00 AM 322

20th Century Fox Is Branding Itself As A Movie Studio For Grown-Ups

Scott Mendelson ,   Contributor


Back in December, I wrote a piece implying that 20th Century Fox was making itself into something of a home for adult-skewing blockbuster fare. Specifically, they were offering hard-R genre fare like A Cure for Wellness, Logan, Alien: Covenant, Kingsman: The Golden Circle as well as the PG-13 but (presumably) hyperviolent War for the Planet of the Apes. That has had mixed results thus far, with Logan being a huge hit, Alien being a slightly disappointing "meh," and A Cure For Wellness outright bombing. But looking at the rest of the 2017 slate, the truth may be even simpler than that. 20th Century Fox's plan may well be simply offering a host of varied movies specifically aimed at adults. Like, for example, a star-studded adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.


Said trailer for the Kenneth Branagh-directed picture dropped early this morning, and it follows the trailer debut of the Idris Elba/Kate Winslet romantic drama The Mountain Between Us. Both previews will play like gangbusters for the Captain Underpants crowd, but both trailers are also "real movies" alongside their more genre-friendly fare. And both films will unquestionably play more to adults than to kids. Back in March, it occurred to me that 20th Century Fox's CinemaCon presentation, which included both trailers along with a knockout first look at The Greatest Showman on Earth and Jennifer Lawrence's Red Sparrow (basically the R-rated Black Widow movie we may never get), was emphasizing the idea that it was more than just franchise fare and would-be blockbusters.


To be fair, Paramount/Viacom Inc. was doing something similar, offering early looks at the likes of Alexander Payne's Downsizing (which looks absolutely brilliant) and George Clooney's Suburbicon alongside Baywatch and Transformers: The Last Knight. But the difference is that I'm not sitting here fretting about whether or not 20th Century Fox can survive the next few years as a movie studio. Fox has been pretty busy of late, offering the likes of Snatched, Logan, Alien: Covenant and even Fox Searchlight's sleeper hit Gifted ($24m over eight weeks) alongside kid fare like Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul and tonight's Captain Underpants (the last of their DreamWorks Animation movies before DWA goes to Comcast). Some of these films broke out, some did not, but the common denominator is that they are genuinely grown-up fare (although Gifted is arguably appropriate for most kids).


And this will continue for the next several months, with War for the Planet of the Apes in July, Kingsman: The Golden Circle in September, The Mountains Between Us in October, Murder on the Orient Express in November, and the double-shot in December with the Hugh Jackman/Zac Efron musical The Greatest Showman (a PT Barnum biopic which looks dynamite) and Steven Spielberg's untitled Pentagon Papers drama (with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep) ending the year. And that's not even counting the Fox Searchlight offerings like Rachel Weisz's Cousin Rachel or Battle of the Sexes.


Sure, they'll also be giving us Blue Sky's animated Ferdinand (which also looks pretty decent, but maybe I just like the song) in December and a third and final Maze Runner movie early next year. But as we enter a period where a new X-Men movie is just as likely to be R-rated as PG-13, it looks like 20th Century Fox is either intentionally playing for older moviegoers with the likes of Red Sparrow and The Predator or merely standing out by actually releasing movies like The Mountain Between Us alongside Captain Underpants.



We'll see how this plays out. But if this works and/or plays into a long-term pattern, then Fox may win big over the long haul merely by creating a solid and tangible identity for their studio output. In an era where Marvel, Pixar and Illumination are kings of the mountain partially because they have branded their output, Fox as a whole would benefit from a clear identity as a distributor of a mix of old-school movies and R-rated franchise fare all pitched directly at adults. After all, if Walt Disney wants to be Chuck E. Cheese, then Fox can be Dave & Busters.

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN stands out because it is old-school, it is a musical, and it definitely will not be rated R! All those will definitely be strong selling points for its Christmas Day release this year!


Jo

[jo]

Test Screenings! Presumably this is NOT fake news

If you live near the area -- click on the link for a chance to be invited. Don't ever declare that you are a Jackman fan -- that might disqualify you from being an OBJECTIVE movie audience! They need unbiased opinions.

Except it is curious/suspect why they addressed the invites to presumably Jackman/Efron/Zendaya fan sites **
From what I know about test screenings - the reps of the studio will randomly choose from nearby malls or crowded places people who might be interested to see a test screening. Hmmm....

Jo *Green with envy*

[jo]

It looks like the notice/alert came from an L.A.-based site which specializes in test screening notices --

twitter.com/FreeMoviePasses

Btw, Woodland Hills is fairly close to L.A.

[carouselkathy]

I tried, but if you are in the over age 49 demographic, they won't let you sign up. These idiots don't realize that an older demographic will be their key audience. Baby boomers are a huge audience that Hollywood is ignoring. Do I sound angry? If anyone runs into Hugh, you might mention this Boomer age discrimination factor.

[jo]

Fan art --

[mamaleh]

Looks like a gif from the Disney movie DUMBO.

Ellen

[jo]

Yup -- but very cute

[jo]

Is the publicity campaign starting


Deadline.com writes a lengthy feature on the role of P.T.Barnum in cultural history ... and a musical biopic is coming to town!

deadline.com/2017/06/hugh-jackman-barnum-brings-badly-needed-humbug-1202107725/

Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum Brings Hollywood Some Badly Needed “Humbug”

by Michael Cieply
June 5, 2017 1:08pm





What Hollywood needs right now is some good, honest “humbug.” Not the flat-out larcenous kind, like a fake medium charging for messages from a dead uncle. But the wit, verve, and, yes, wink of deception that are the soul of show business, as P.T. Barnum, the master American showman, might have defined it.


Fortunately, Barnum and some of his lessons are coming to town, in an unusual movie set for release by 20th Century Fox on Christmas, with some likely pre-release hoopla at festivals or otherwise in the fall. Directed by Michael Gracey, an Australian mostly known for his work on television commercials, the film is titled The Greatest Showman. Like last year’s La La Land, it is an original movie musical—the very concept defies the contemporary laws of cinematic gravity—and it counts the Oscar-winning La La Land composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul among its contributors.


Hugh Jackman plays Barnum, the 19th century trickster, impresario, and master of entertainment, both weird and wonderful. (The film credits include Oh So Small Productions, a British-based agency for short, dwarf and tall actors—so you can expect some delightful extremes.) More, Jackman, along with Laurence Mark, is a producer of The Greatest Showman, which, not incidentally, was conceived about eight years ago when Jackman was the host of an Oscar show produced by Mark and Bill Condon, who is among the new movie’s writers.

The Jackman-Condon-Mark Oscar ceremony was all about show business. Light on politics, heavy on song-and-dance, it relied on sequences contributed by movie insiders like Nora Ephron, Baz Luhrmann and Judd Apatow. In the middle of the fun, someone got the bright idea that Jackman, a showman to the core, should play Barnum, the brassiest entertainer of them all.


Oddly, Phineas Taylor Barnum, born in 1810, had all but escaped the clutches of a movie business that owes him more than it sometimes likes to admit. After all, it was Barnum who refined the art of “humbug”—we’d call it “hype”—drawing a distinction between outright fraud, which he loathed, and a kind of entertaining deceit in which the paying audience was cheerfully complicit. His more outrageous attractions, including the supposedly 161-year-old woman who had been George Washington’s nursemaid and a “Feejee Mermaid” apparently crafted from a fish and a monkey, relied on what film students now describe as the willing suspension of disbelief. “He understood that American audiences did not mind cries of trickery; in fact they delighted in debate,” Neil Harris wrote in his 1973 book Humbug: The Art Of P. T. Barnum.


“Amusement and deceit could co-exist; people would come to see something they suspected might be an exaggeration or even a masquerade,” continued Harris, in what might have passed for a description of the modern film audience and its relationship with ever more elaborate stunts and effects. Yet the movies pretty much looked away from Barnum after Wallace Beery played him in a drama called The Mighty Barnum in 1934. John Huston, who was supposed to write the film, had become fascinated with what he came to see as Barnum’s unplumbed depths. In his autobiography, An Open Book, Huston said he found in Barnum’s “wild energy, boundless vulgarity and casual assumption that he was the shrewdest man alive, an exemplification of the nineteenth-century American dream of conquest and Manifest Destiny.” That was enough to panic the producer Darryl Zanuck, who went with another writer and a less earnest approach. The resulting film, wrote Variety in its review, “possesses all the elements, except an occasional lack of speed.” (It was all of 87 minutes long.)


But The Greatest Showman now promises to arrive at a time when the movie business needs a dose of P.T. Barnum. Bored with its own summer sequels, Hollywood has to make do with tub-thumping the success of Wonder Woman—which appears to have posted the 43d-biggest opening of all time, without the annoying demotion of an inflation-adjustment, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.


Tech giants, meanwhile, have appropriated all the best hype. Robots will replace people in 45 years! Jeff Bezos will live forever!! Elon Musk will send the rich on tour buses to Mars!!! Competing movie promotions, by contrast, have about as much energy as those wrap-around posters on trash cans at the beach. (Is it any wonder millions forgot to watch Pirates Of The Caribbean 5?)


Even The Mighty Barnum had enough spirit to circulate seemingly magical blank posters that, when rubbed with a pencil, revealed oddities that “Barnum found to amaze all the world!” One oddity appears to have been a tattooed lady, perhaps not as amazing now as then. But we can hope that Jackman and company will soon bring some humbug back to a business that needs it.

[jo]

Jun 5, 2017 17:53:14 GMT -5 jo said:

Is the publicity campaign starting


Deadline.com writes a lengthy feature on the role of P.T.Barnum in cultural history ... and a musical biopic is coming to town!

deadline.com/2017/06/hugh-jackman-barnum-brings-badly-needed-humbug-1202107725/

Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum Brings Hollywood Some Badly Needed “Humbug”

by Michael Cieply
June 5, 2017 1:08pm





What Hollywood needs right now is some good, honest “humbug.” Not the flat-out larcenous kind, like a fake medium charging for messages from a dead uncle. But the wit, verve, and, yes, wink of deception that are the soul of show business, as P.T. Barnum, the master American showman, might have defined it.


Fortunately, Barnum and some of his lessons are coming to town, in an unusual movie set for release by 20th Century Fox on Christmas, with some likely pre-release hoopla at festivals or otherwise in the fall. Directed by Michael Gracey, an Australian mostly known for his work on television commercials, the film is titled The Greatest Showman. Like last year’s La La Land, it is an original movie musical—the very concept defies the contemporary laws of cinematic gravity—and it counts the Oscar-winning La La Land composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul among its contributors.


Hugh Jackman plays Barnum, the 19th century trickster, impresario, and master of entertainment, both weird and wonderful. (The film credits include Oh So Small Productions, a British-based agency for short, dwarf and tall actors—so you can expect some delightful extremes.) More, Jackman, along with Laurence Mark, is a producer of The Greatest Showman, which, not incidentally, was conceived about eight years ago when Jackman was the host of an Oscar show produced by Mark and Bill Condon, who is among the new movie’s writers.

The Jackman-Condon-Mark Oscar ceremony was all about show business. Light on politics, heavy on song-and-dance, it relied on sequences contributed by movie insiders like Nora Ephron, Baz Luhrmann and Judd Apatow. In the middle of the fun, someone got the bright idea that Jackman, a showman to the core, should play Barnum, the brassiest entertainer of them all.


Oddly, Phineas Taylor Barnum, born in 1810, had all but escaped the clutches of a movie business that owes him more than it sometimes likes to admit. After all, it was Barnum who refined the art of “humbug”—we’d call it “hype”—drawing a distinction between outright fraud, which he loathed, and a kind of entertaining deceit in which the paying audience was cheerfully complicit. His more outrageous attractions, including the supposedly 161-year-old woman who had been George Washington’s nursemaid and a “Feejee Mermaid” apparently crafted from a fish and a monkey, relied on what film students now describe as the willing suspension of disbelief. “He understood that American audiences did not mind cries of trickery; in fact they delighted in debate,” Neil Harris wrote in his 1973 book Humbug: The Art Of P. T. Barnum.


“Amusement and deceit could co-exist; people would come to see something they suspected might be an exaggeration or even a masquerade,” continued Harris, in what might have passed for a description of the modern film audience and its relationship with ever more elaborate stunts and effects. Yet the movies pretty much looked away from Barnum after Wallace Beery played him in a drama called The Mighty Barnum in 1934. John Huston, who was supposed to write the film, had become fascinated with what he came to see as Barnum’s unplumbed depths. In his autobiography, An Open Book, Huston said he found in Barnum’s “wild energy, boundless vulgarity and casual assumption that he was the shrewdest man alive, an exemplification of the nineteenth-century American dream of conquest and Manifest Destiny.” That was enough to panic the producer Darryl Zanuck, who went with another writer and a less earnest approach. The resulting film, wrote Variety in its review, “possesses all the elements, except an occasional lack of speed.” (It was all of 87 minutes long.)


But The Greatest Showman now promises to arrive at a time when the movie business needs a dose of P.T. Barnum. Bored with its own summer sequels, Hollywood has to make do with tub-thumping the success of Wonder Woman—which appears to have posted the 43d-biggest opening of all time, without the annoying demotion of an inflation-adjustment, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.


Tech giants, meanwhile, have appropriated all the best hype. Robots will replace people in 45 years! Jeff Bezos will live forever!! Elon Musk will send the rich on tour buses to Mars!!! Competing movie promotions, by contrast, have about as much energy as those wrap-around posters on trash cans at the beach. (Is it any wonder millions forgot to watch Pirates Of The Caribbean 5?)


Even The Mighty Barnum had enough spirit to circulate seemingly magical blank posters that, when rubbed with a pencil, revealed oddities that “Barnum found to amaze all the world!” One oddity appears to have been a tattooed lady, perhaps not as amazing now as then. But we can hope that Jackman and company will soon bring some humbug back to a business that needs it.

It's a good intro on the subject of P.T. Barnum and his role in creating the concept of show business! People might be curious about the movie because it stars Hugh Jackman ( coming from his success in LOGAN and his action cum song-and-dance star reputation) and it's in a newly revitalized genre -- but the subject of the biopic is actually a very interesting personality and whose accomplishments merit this musical film bio!

The suspension of disbelief work as strongly at present ( adamantium claws/time travel/world annihilation with explosion galore/etc) as it did in the past, at the time of Barnum

Given the subject, THE GREATEST SHOWMAN will seem like a breath of fresh air for moviegoers weary of franchises and other mindless blockbusters borne mostly of action and CGI/Special Effects ...and maybe even dark indies at awards season time! Maybe because this movie is centric on one real person who brought mass entertainment to the public and the spectacle he brought were unusual or breathtaking ( the circus)?

I wonder - will we see a teaser or a trailer soon?

By end of June, it will be 6 months to release.


Jo

[jo]

with some likely pre-release hoopla at festivals or otherwise in the fall.

Not so sure that will be such a great idea!

Certainly not Venice -- too early (around early September)...plus I do not know if this is the kind of fare that is rewarded with the Golden Lion ( the last Best Picture awardee was given to a film from the Philippines, which is an indie-like drama). Venice also did not appreciate the likes of THE FOUNTAIN ( the first review I ever saw of that movie by one of the festival critics was a 1 out 4 stars!. Besides, the gap between the Venice Festival to actual film release will be around 3 months. Too long? I

Toronto - that is the venue closest to American audiences. But again, would a film like GREATEST SHOWMAN be voted as Best Liked Movie by the festival audiences? Prisoners succeeded in Toronto -- not only because it was by a Canadian director headed for his first American movie ( Denis Villeneuve) but the subject is literally stunning! Again, is this the venue for a film like THE GREATEST SHOWMAN.

Telluride - this happens right after or before Toronto -- but it is more like a festival for film buffs.

Cannes - that is gone ( May)! But given the atmosphere and hoopla there -- maybe a premiere of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN there would have been a striking and glittery subject. Besides, SHOWMAN completed its principal photography only in May!

Tribeca - that is also gone ( April)! Closest to Barnum's home state ( Connecticut) and is right in the heart of New York City.

The Greatest Showman is likely best introduced in a glittery New York premiere...and what better time to release it to movie audiences right in time for the biggest festival on earth -- CHRISTMASTIME! Even in Asian countries - which seem to love musicals and following on the heels of LA LA LAND, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and even faintly LES MISERABLES!


PS: If this were a Broadway show/not sure if movies have ever participated -- it will be tremendous publicity if the circus retinue ( if not real animals, how about those gigantic balloons that make the parade such a spectacle) and the lead stars/enssembles join the Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York ... And how about a tie-up with Macy for their Christmas windows


Jo

[jo]

In a lengthy and insightful LOGAN interview, Hugh Jackman segues into the topic of a completely opposite role for him --

www.theversatilegent.com/chatting-all-things-logan-with-hugh-jackman/

How do you feel going from Logan onto The Greatest Showman?


Both movies are very personal to me. It took us seven years to get a green light for The Greatest Showman. I can’t tell you how many workshops and sessions and meetings, rehearsals, recording and studio sessions we had to get that. It’s a really sweet moment for me to be able to do complete opposites. These are opposite characters and require me to use all the different skills I have learnt over many years. It is a movie musical with all original music. Prior to La La Land, there hadn’t been one for 22 years. Actually, the guys who won the Oscar [for La La Land], Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, wrote the music and were hired on our movie before anyone really knew who they were. That is gratifying. I love La La Land and I love that audiences are opening up to musicals. And people who would never go to a musical are going along. With The Greatest Showman we tell the story as if P.T. Barnum were telling the story of his life! You can argue that his story was the start of the American Dream.

It is very interesting how two completely different roles have had so much impact on his professional career. In a sense THE GREATEST SHOWMAN could turn out to be the best representation of the duality of his career as an actor and as a performer! The cinematic medium and the theatre (" and require me to use all the different skills I have learnt over many years" ) !


Jo

[jo]

Psst...secret!

Zac Efron France‏ @zacefrance 3h
3 hours ago


Replying to @zacefrance
le film semble être bien ainsi que les chansons!
Translated from French by Bing

the film seems to be good as well as the songs!





Zac Efron France‏ @zacefrance 3h
3 hours ago


Il y a eu une projection de #TheGreatestShowman hier, les personnes qui l'ont vu n'ont pas le droit d'en parler mais d'après certains tweets
Translated from French by Bing

There was a projection of #TheGreatestShowman yesterday, people who saw him did not have the right to talk about but from some tweets

[mamaleh]

A tentatively good sign!

Ellen

[jo]

@lambert_hofer_costumes
Nur mal ein kleiner Sneak Peek! Ein paar der aufwendigen, kunterbunten Hüte, die vom Set von "The Greatest Showman on Earth" retour gekommen sind... wir können den Film kaum erwarten! :-D Just a little sneak peek! Some of the extravagant, colorful hats which came back from the set of "The Greatest Showman on Earth"... we cannot wait to see the movie! :-D #thegreatestshowmanonearth  #thegreatestshowman  #circus  #musical  #hughjackman  #zacefron  #michellewilliams  #costumes  #costumedesign  #turnofthecentury  #fashion  #periodfashion  #tailors  #tailoring  #dressmaker  #madetomeasure  #film  #culture  #hollywood