THE GREATEST SHOWMAN : Box Office

[jo]

December 20, 2017 must have been a lucky date - both films were the only ones released on that day ( Wednesday)!

LOL - and we were alarmed or complaining that the release date was advanced from December 25 to December 20. Santa simply came earlier


Jo

[jo]

www.tracking-board.com/jumanji-remains-1-followed-by-spielbergs-the-post-neesons-the-commuter/

Fourth place went to the second-strongest holiday release, Fox’s musical The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman, which was one of the few returning films up from last weekend with $15.6 million over the four days, a nice 11% bump thanks to the government holiday. It has grossed $98.4 million in less than a month and will become the 32nd movie of 2017 to hit the $100 million milestone sometime this week.

The difference between JUMANJI and SHOWMAN was that Jumanji was welcomed by critics...while mixed reviews greeted The Greatest Showman. So, the box office story of SHOWMAN is a showbiz tale by itself! It rose in audience affection on its sheer appeal and not from critics's praising! It became the movie musical that America fell in love with

[jo]

There are some predictions that it could settle down in the $ 140 - $ 150 million range for the domestic market.


Hope it beats LA LA LAND for Domestic


Jo

[jo]

editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/box-office-game-not-over-for-jumanji-which-smashes-750m-global/

Hugh Jackman has been displaying the best legs of any Hollywood star this winter with the hit musical The Greatest Showman which eased only 12% to an estimated $11M as the PG-rated film has spent all five of its weeks in the Top 5. The total is now $113.5M heading to $150M or more which will make it the top grossing film of the actor’s career outside of his Wolverine roles. Any Academy Award nominations in craft and music departments would help keep it going too. With another $118M to date overseas, global now stands at $231.5M with much more to come.

[jo]

Per Box Office Mojo - estimate as of January 21, 2018:

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $113,480,607 (49.0%)
Foreign: $118,000,000 (51.0%)

Worldwide: $231,480,607

EDIT: Final numbers as of January 21, 2018 --

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $113,125,431 (48.9%)
Foreign: $118,145,825 (51.1%)

Worldwide: $231,271,256

[jo]

Collider should be ashamed to let this box office reporter pontificate on movies he is reporting box office numbers on *rolleyes*

collider.com/weekend-box-office-jumanji/#images

I’d even argue that Jumanji is a better movie than The Post, which will come in at fourth with $12.1 million. The Post has a few things going for it – a handful of evocative shots, a great cast, etc. – but it’s also easily Steven Spielberg‘s laziest and most condescendingly obvious movie in two decades. There are innumerable scenes in the movie where a line is delivered by an actor as if underlined to remind you that they’re making a point, opting for bloated didacticism over curiosity or insight.

Image via Sony Pictures
The Post shares this trait with The Greatest Showman, which landed in fifth again with $11 million to add to the musical $100-million-plus domestic gross. Like The Post, The Greatest Showman lacks context, a sense that for all the heroic sheen given to these characters, the truth is that both the Washington Post and P.T. Barnum have bought into inexcusable and morally reprehensible acts, whether it be in rampant exploitation or supporting the Iraq war. It’s what makes all their arguably well-meaning lessons feel empty at best and venomously cynical at worst. Jumanji has the grace enough to not have any illusions about its social or political worth, and that’s part of its current triumphant streak at the box office.
Here’s your top five for the weekend:

Title/Weekend Domestic BO/Total Domestic BO

1. ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’
$20,040,000/$316,985,148

2. ’12 Strong’/$16,500,000/$16,500,000

3. ‘Den of Thieves’/$15,320,000/$15,320,000

4. ‘The Post’/$12,150,000/$45,191,402

5. ‘The Greatest Showman’/$11,000,000/$113,480,607

Readers comments ( partial) :

Sample of feedback on how the box office editor was handling himself in his article --

OrangeTag
1d
The needless commentary once again from Cabin. How about talking about the numbers and not mixing in your personal views into it. Clearly there is a market for these types of movies and people choose to see them. Perhaps you should dig deeper into that, instead of name calling the ones who do.

Two interesting posts re THE GREATEST SHOWMAN --

Rocky
15h

I’ve got to give a hand to the Greatest Showman. My wife and her friends love it and have seen it a ton of times, so I looked up its stats. It’s week to week is one of the craziest I’ve seen. Most movies are high and have a sharp drop week to week (obviously). Not the Greatest Showman. It’s gone up from the start, then hits the same ~$13m each week. That sucker has got legs!

I live in the town that has the honor of being the highest grossing theater for the movie in the country (out in the middle of Idaho of all places.) my theater still sells out showings of it even this late in the run. Crazy.

And for Cabin, it’s obviously not supposed to be an exposé on Barnum and his life and the harsh realities of circus life. People like it for just being a fun, light, charismatic escape. It’s a musical, not a documentary.

Blue Carrot
17h

Yesterday I saw "Post" (good, but not great movie. Streep, though, is fantastic), and upon exiting the theater, I saw a long steady stream of moviegoers exiting another theater... it went on and on, more people exiting with smiles on their faces - women, families, children, etc. Looked up at the sign above the theater door and it said "Greatest Showman." I had no intent on seeing the movie, because overall reviews said it was mediocre at best. Guess I'll check it out next week, instead of waiting for Netflix.




Green Radio

Reply to : Blue Carrot
16h

The film is essentially exactly what the trailers make it look like except - surprisingly - relatively entertaining. Not hugely, but enough.

It also helps that its only 1hr45 - it avoids the bloat that often really drags musicals down.

[jo]

Brilliant article from THE ATLANTIC on why THE GREATEST SHOWMAN has captured the imagination!


www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/the-astonishing-success-of-the-greatest-showman/551081/

The Astonishing Success of The Greatest Showman

After a rocky start in theaters, the Hugh Jackman–starring circus musical has become a massive word-of-mouth hit.

David Sims 12:01 PM ET Culture



The hottest box-office story in Hollywood right now isn’t Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which made more than $600 million in the U.S. and became the sixth biggest hit in movie history. It isn’t the surprising success of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, an unambiguous smash that has cemented the star power of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. No, the most interesting film in last weekend’s returns was The Greatest Showman—the family-friendly original musical about P.T. Barnum starring Hugh Jackman that has now made $113 million in five weekends. It was a risky proposition of a movie that got mediocre reviews and initially generated little excitement from audiences. Now, it’s one of the largest word-of-mouth hits in Hollywood history. So what happened?


When The Greatest Showman opened in theaters on December 20, it looked dead on arrival, making only $8.8 million that weekend. But the following weekend it made $15 million, almost twice as much. That’s largely unheard of in contemporary Hollywood, where big studios films are front-loaded (opened on a massive number of screens) and the first weekend is king. The holiday season does offer a little more breathing room for movies as families have the downtime to go to the theater, but even by those standards—by any standards for a wide release, in fact—The Greatest Showman is unique.


In industry parlance, the easiest way to judge a film’s word-of-mouth is by its “multiplier,” an essential measurement of how well a release holds after its opening weekend. To get a movie’s multiplier, you simply divide its box-office totals by the amount it made in its first weekend.

A solid multiplier for a film that opens wide is around 3: Beauty and the Beast, one of 2017’s biggest hits, opened to $174 million and made $504 million over its entire run, or 2.9 times as much. A very good multiplier for a blockbuster is 4 (in 2017, Wonder Woman and Coco are good examples which indicates an extremely positive audience reaction and a lot of return viewings.

As of now, The Greatest Showman’s multiplier is an astonishing 12.8. And it’s only going to rise; the film is still playing on 2,800 screens and its studio, Fox, is now promoting “singalong” screenings with subtitles for the musical numbers. Only one movie has ever opened wide and made a higher multiplier—Titanic, which opened to a paltry $28.6 million in 1997 and finished at $600 million. That’s a multiplier of 21, the one number even The Greatest Showman probably won’t be able to beat. But the musical has already bested every other famous blockbuster with “legs” that stuck around in theaters to everyone’s surprise after a smaller opening—movies like Avatar, There’s Something About Mary, The Sixth Sense, and The Blind Side.



It all prompts the question: Why? After all, The Greatest Showman is an easy film to criticize (and plenty of reviewers were happy to oblige). It takes its tricky subject, a man who made his fortune in the mid-19th century off his menagerie of “freaks,” and frames him as a consummate entertainer who sought only to make people happy. It posits that the various “oddities” in his museum, such as the bearded lady or the entertainer Tom Thumb, were in fact liberated by Barnum and allowed to be themselves onstage, a clunky moral at best. It’s a movie that borders on hagiography despite being centered on a man who in real life has a legacy of exploiting his workers and racial stereotyping.

But there is something undeniably lovable about The Greatest Showman, even though (or perhaps because) its historical perspective has been so radically simplified. The musical numbers, written by the Tony Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen) are earworms, easy-listening pop songs with instant karaoke appeal (the film’s soundtrack has hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200). The ensemble offers some great performances, particularly from the Broadway veteran Keala Settle (as the bearded lady) and the up-and-coming star Zendaya (as a trapeze artist). The numbers themselves are well-choreographed and staged, not as overedited as Hollywood musicals tend to be.



And then there’s Jackman, one of the few actors who fits the old-fashioned, Golden Age of Hollywood movie-star mold. He can sing, he can dance, but he can also play a musclebound brute if necessary, or emote in a serious drama. The Greatest Showman was an $84 million original musical that Jackman worked to shepherd to screen. He even hand-picked the visual-effects supervisor Michael Gracey, who had directed him in a Lipton commercial, to make his feature debut with the film. After that, it still took years to reach theaters while Jackman found a studio that would take a chance on it (the production was first announced in 2009).

The effort Jackman put into getting The Greatest Showman made comes through in the manic gleefulness of his performance. It’s rare that a studio will back a big-budget movie simply because an actor is pushing for it—these days, an established franchise or brand name is necessary—but Jackman succeeded, and the film’s impressive run is evidence of his star power. Almost all of 2017’s biggest hits were sequels, remakes, or children’s films, with Jackman’s Logan (the tenth X-Men movie) among them. The Greatest Showman was a bigger gamble that’s paid off for Fox.



Will another studio approve a film as risky in the future? Given that Fox is in the process of being acquired by the far more cautious Disney, there’s less chance of an expensive, original feature like The Greatest Showman getting greenlit again. But nearly five weeks in, it hasn’t lost its hold on moviegoers. Most blockbusters feel like they’ve been designed by committee, perfectly balanced by focus groups and audience tests to attract the widest swath of viewers. The Greatest Showman, a passion project suffused with old-fashioned silliness, stands out from that crowd—and it’s an unexpected triumph that studios would do well to pay attention to.

[jo]

In the words of Philip Carlyle, when PTBarnum was handing his tophat over --


"It's you they have come to see!"

But not just for Hugh's great gift of entertainment...but for his charm and charisma exploding on the screen!


If you have a chance to read many of the social media reactions -- there is a lot of validation of what The Atlantic Monthly has perceived to be the main success factor of the movie.


Jo

[jo]

To simplify the audience's reaction ( based on so many social media reflections) --

the movie brought joy into people's lives!

A few posts ago, on this thread, there was an account of someone saying --

and upon exiting the theater, I saw a long steady stream of moviegoers exiting another theater... it went on and on, more people exiting with smiles on their faces - women, families, children, etc. Looked up at the sign above the theater door and it said "Greatest Showman."

It's also astonishing how it became a beloved movie across ages and across genders and across borders!

In a sense it brought simplicity ( pleasurable simplicity, not the silliness of some blockbusters ) into people's lives, given the choking complexity of the current environment worldwide!


Jo

[jo]

He can sing, he can dance, but he can also play a musclebound brute if necessary, or emote in a serious drama.

This is the first time that I have seen a full recognition of Hugh's talent and versatility on film! Some would talk about his triple threat talent ( ala musical theatre), others would applaud his action-movie heroics, while others express amazement at how well he can emote in dramas! Hmmm...if his stage prowess ( musical theater and drama) is also recognized... but then that would already be well-known with many of his true-blue fans


Jo

[jo]

Other than the joy the movie has brought to the world ( pun intended ) -- it has also inspired so many people with its many messages -- such as this one, which inspired someone to write this poem!

Dare to dream again


In the sky I see the stars shining bright,

Telling me to close my eyes and dream again,

But inside of me I have lost the light,

And I am too scared to start again,

My heart then says to me that I am not right,

That I should let the fears pass and be a little insane,

You can be what you want to be,

And it is never too late to be me,

Our dreams are what defines our wants,

Our efforts can make it work,

Even if the world laughs and taunts,

Your dreams will work and have perks,

If you have faith in your dreams,

If you have courage to create the light,

Then keep pushing the limits with might,

And don’t give up and keep on the fight,

One day all your efforts will pay,

The sun will shine your day with its ray,

When that day comes you won’t feel blue,

Because all your dreams will come true.

In a sense it is not just THE SOUND OF MUSIC, this movie has also created a strong sense of empowerment. I am not just referring to the way THIS IS ME has sent out a very positive message.

More subtly, the story of Philip Carlyle also carries a similar path to becoming true to oneself. Born of privilege but not happy with it, he takes an unknown journey that eventually brings joy to his life. Did you notice how Philip's almost glassy-eyed and unhappy eyes shoot out a wonderful, inspiring sparkle when he realizes that PTBarnum was the first to give him the nod as the next greatest showman! Well done, Zac Efron, in the acting department! And singing and dancing, too!

[jo]

I have just read the reactions to the Atlantic Monthly article -- and I was grinning from ear to ear, after reading the first post just now... it looked like we talked to each other

Christina Barr • 11 hours ago

I hadn't listened to the soundtrack prior to watching the film. I had kind of seen the trailers. One image stuck out in my head that made me interested in watching it, as someone that does editing. I saw potential.

Holy cow! I adored that movie. I saw it with my sister, and we became obsessed with trying to get other people to watch it. I immediately bought the soundtrack, something I have never done for any film. We saw it again with a 60 year old woman from our church and she said it was rare that she was grateful that she actually saw a film, and she thanked us for bringing her to the show. We got another one of my sisters to go, and in the same day, brought two others. Then, the singalongs came. I've seen it 5 times now.

The visuals were spectacular. It is a thin run time, but I liked the pacing. I thought the story was told in a very purposeful way. And if it were longer, would there be so many people enthusiastic about seeing it 5 times or more? I think not. The performances were also great, and Hugh was outstanding. The emotion during songs like "From Now On" is just breathtaking.

There's actually a lot of meat in the storytelling that many of the fans see, and I found it emotionally a lot more complex than something like La La Land (plus the music and dancing was waaaaay better).

If you can't get beyond the historical inaccuracies, I get not liking it.

But when you really get to the root of it, people enjoyed the feelings that it invoked. It was inspiring and empowering. It wasn't divisive. It was super clean and family friendly. It had the kind of dancing that makes you wish you were a dancer and catchy songs that you want to keep singing. It pushed all the right buttons to make genuine fans that believe in the feelings that were stirred while enjoying the film. It produced joy.

Jo

[jo]

Prediction for this weekend domestic box office --

deadline.com/2018/01/maze-runner-death-cure-weekend-box-office-1202269925/

Updated:

The Greatest Showman is holding like a rock in its sixth weekend with $9.4M (-12%) in 4th place and a running total by Sunday of $126.3M — and that’s off one Oscar nomination for best song, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s “This is Me.” (You’ll remember those guys won the best song Oscar last year for La La Land‘s “City of Stars.”). It’s just further proof how much the original musical can resonate on the big screen, especially in the wake of La La Land ($151.1M domestic B.O.).

LOL - it is not just because of one song...all songs from the soundtrack could qualify for an Oscar nomination had Fox not limited its candidate for consideration to THIS IS ME ( to make sure there is no internal strife among the songs ).


Of course, the man portraying the master showman has all the chops, too ...and plenty of charm and charisma to spare!


Jo

[jo]

Estimate after week ending January 28, 2017 --

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $126,475,232 (48.7%)
Foreign: $133,041,052 (51.3%)

Worldwide: $259,516,284

Somewhat disappointing are box office receipts to-date from the overseas market.

[jo]

The success of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN in the Domestic Market has become a regular subject of fascination in Mendelson's weekly report --

www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/01/28/greatest-showman-and-jumanji-continue-to-make-box-office-history/#6f09be127ea4

Not to be outdone, The Greatest Showman earned another $9.5 million (-11%) in its sixth weekend for a $126.475m domestic total. The Hugh Jackman/Zac Efron/Michelle Williams/Rebecca Ferguson/Zendaya musical will end the weekend leggier than Forrest Gump, Good Will Hunting and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Among all somewhat wide releases in the last twenty years (since Titanic), it is the fifth-leggiest somewhat wide release since Titanic. Simply put, The Greatest Showman can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!

Once the 20th Century Fox/Chermin Entertainment musical/biopic passes $143 million, it’ll be the third-leggiest wide release in 20 years (yes, leggier than even Scream), behind only Chicago and Titanic. At this point, passing La La Land ($151m) seems almost inevitable, without anywhere near the buzz or Oscar fawning that greeted that Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling gem last year. It has earned an obscene 14.3x its opening Fri-Sun weekend and has earned more in its sixth weekend than it did on its debut frame.

[jo]

Look at that rate of growth!

If you were to draw a line, as in regression analysis in statistics, the movie will shoot into forever


Check out the discussions on the thread ( click on any space on his tweeted message).


Jo

[jo]

How to explain the continuing success of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

Deadline looks deeper --

deadline.com/2018/01/maze-runner-death-cure-weekend-box-office-1202269925/

A turn-of-the-century original musical? Talk about an audacious bet, but Fox continues to pull it off. Who knew we’d still be talking about The Greatest Showman in the wake of The Last Jedi holiday season at this point in time with $9.5m in weekend 6, -11% and a running total of $126.5M? At this pace, Greatest Showman could potentially out peg Les Miserables ($148.8M) and La La Land ($151M) at the domestic B.O. The studio greenlit a movie that they knew the audiences would enjoy, a contrast with critics’ grim forecasts for this Michael Gracey-directed movie.

“It’s a piece of populist entertainment that has caught on everywhere with a mix of family and Broadway fans,” says Aronson, “People are touched by this movie, touched by its message of inclusion and the sense of coming together. Then you have the ultra-charismatic Hugh Jackman.”

[jo]

The story of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN at the box office has become a source of admiration, with some trying to trace the secret formula --

www.hollywoodintoto.com/greatest-showman-box-office/

Excerpts --

It begs the question … why?

*It’s that rare, PG-rated film that isn’t animated or directly aimed at the kiddies.

*Word of mouth still matters, sparked by passionate social media conversations.

*Jackman is not only a talented song and dance man but less divisive than most modern stars.

*Oh, that irresistible music from the team behind “La La Land,” Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

20th Century Fox shrewdly upped the ante this weekend. The studio released a special version of the film in 300 theaters flashing the songs’ lyrics on the screen. The sing-a-long format is a brilliant marketing ploy to play up the film’s undeniable strength.

The people are speaking, over and again. Will Hollywood listen?

Someday, the story of the journey of this passion project announced 7 1/2 years ago may even make a great Hollywood film

What happened behind the scenes may even be more intriguing - how can a project ( which on hindsight holds so much appeal) take that long to reach the people's hearts?


Jo

[Deleted]

Will Hollywood listen? Hollywood put big wax plugs in their ears and God knows why. Everybody shocked and disoriented, there is even a note of disappointment in some of these in hindsight findings, having to admit now the success of a movie panned regardless and without mercy. No one does self-criticism about all those negative judgments, no one has the guts to admit with humility the excess of bitterness and say clearly "sorry, we were wrong" because it's embarrassing, it was too enjoyable to reiterate again "Hugh Jackman is the aussie actor who does bad movies". Life is now and I personally hate when critics considers the audience as an irrelevant entity to the success of a film, audience appreciation = cheesy movie, critics praise = absolute masterpiece, because I'm part of that audience too and I know how much he cared about this film.

[jo]

Nina,

I can understand the frustration

Did you have a chance to read Variety Chief Film Critic Owen Gleiberman's article on his regard for the show and why he thinks fellow critics were very negative. It was written in the early days, maybe only after the second weekend...but what a direct response to the other critics's negativity.

Even more interesting are the more than 100 replies to the article ( I relished reading all of the 130 readers feedback).

variety.com/2017/film/columns/the-greatest-showman-critical-sin-its-defiantly-uncool-1202650344/#article-comments


I'd love to see Mr. Gleiberman write another article - this time on the box office phenomenon that have the critics stumped -- it is not so much the actual numbers ( Jumanji has enjoyed even more success in absolute terms) but the way audiences all over the world have taken it to heart and how word of mouth has become the weapon of choice supporting this film's immense popularity. More than that, seeing so many covers ( from the very young...to the young-at-heart) that I cannot longer keep pace and share all the tweets here, cum song covers) has also been one way that the fans have expressed full appreciation of the movie.

Interestingly, someone just tweeted that she wouldn't be surprised, if a song from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN will someday be sung or the music be used as background for a wedding

Jo

[jo]

From across the pond, DenOfGeekUK is tracing the unusual endurance of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN at the box office --

www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/the-greatest-showman/54909/the-greatest-showman-and-its-quiet-endurance-in-cinemas

[jo]

Now some media are rushing their stories out on what caused the miraculous box office performance of GREATEST SHOWMAN at the box office

www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/31/the-greatest-showman-success-film-story-of-the-year-hugh-jackman

The Greatest Showman

The Greatest Showman: how the Hugh Jackman musical became an unlikely hit

It runs counter to box-office trends, it’s hokey and old-school, but somehow this all-singing, all-dancing spectacle keeps winning over audiences


Caspar Salmon
Wed 31 Jan 2018 09.17 GMT
Last modified on Wed 31 Jan 2018 09.18 GMT



Take a bona fide Broadway star, put them in a stodgy ahistorical musical, with a credible co-star gamely slumming it in a secondary role, and what do you get? The Sound of Music, Funny Girl, or indeed The Greatest Showman, whose stealth success at the box office since it opened five weeks ago has quietly become the biggest film story of the new year.
The Greatest Showman’s success is not just surprising: it’s bordering on miraculous. The film’s audience has grown week on week, after inauspicious beginnings, to an extent not seen since Titanic or Chicago. This goes against all received wisdom, and runs blithely counter to all current box-office trends. The movie is an original, unfranchisable story with little or no built-in audience, no superheroes, and is a gosh-darn-it musical. Why this not-especially-good film? Why now?
The Greatest Showman review – Hugh Jackman puts on a show in cheesy, charming musical



First of all, the way The Greatest Showman has built its audience, gradually, shows that word of mouth has played a key role. What’s interesting, and sort of charming, is that it is likely that Showman is drawing in not only new audiences curious to see what all the fuss is about, but repeat viewers who don’t care about the film’s formal problems and who are – presumably – turning up for the hits and the kitsch factor. The film has both in spades: Never Enough, This Is Me or Rewrite the Stars would all win the Eurovision Song Contest, and the film’s turgid story of self-actualisation dips into schmaltz just about every other minute. That tone is crucial – the film offers entertainment, but in an easygoing, Dirty Dancing kind of way. It’s never too sassy, smart, or even particularly camp, making its pleasures relatable and comforting.



Coming-out duet … Zac Efron and Hugh Jackman. Photograph: Allstar/20th Century Fox
It isn’t hard to see how the film’s feelgood factor can give audiences a much-needed sense of escape or respite. You could plausibly go further and suggest that the way the film reinvents PT Barnum – by all accounts a nasty, racist piece of work who exploited his workers without any qualms – as a beaming champion of minorities and misfits, might chime with viewers who wish to see good in men, and find precious little of it around in today’s #MeToo landscape. The Greatest Showman offers a hagiographic narrative of financial success, individual self-assertion and togetherness, merrily papering over such small difficulties as patriarchal oppression and systemic structural inequality.


Also, while Showman is often ropy in its execution, little of its making has been left down to chance. Its main cast ranges in age from 22 to 49, drawing on Instagram royalty (Zendaya) and old-school stardom (Jackman). There’s eye candy for people of all persuasions, and there’s a winking coming-out duet between Jackman and Efron to court the crucial pink dollar. The film is an old-time musical built on classical lines, but it also pays lip service in its music to current trends. Its slick power-pop soundtrack has found its way to the top of the charts in the US.

Perhaps the film’s success shouldn’t be surprising. Like The Sound of Music and Funny Girl, it’s built on a tried and tested formula that, admittedly, hadn’t been used in a while, but reliably hit payola for studios for years and years. Even, more recently, the successes of Frozen, Empire and Hamilton show that there’s a potentially huge audience for musicals, which was going untapped in cinema. The film is testament, in almost every aspect, to old-fashioned values working well, right down to Jackman’s star power in getting the project off the ground and giving it his promotional firepower. It’s a crafty piece of meshing of his image with the film’s brand that fully pays off.

Finally, the film – though hokey and trite at its core – offers a genuine rush of spectacle and wonder, which still counts for something on a big screen, perhaps more so in an era of standardised CGI. Where audiences used to marvel at Fred and Ginger hotfooting it on a shiny dancefloor, we get to watch Zendaya whoosh around a circus on a trapeze. To quote the film, “it’s fire, it’s freedom, it’s flooding open”.

[jo]

www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4365

Fox's The Greatest Showman dances its way into fourth position as it enters its seventh week in release, eying a weekend around $7-8 million and a domestic cume heading toward $140 million.

Maybe a few million $$ short by Sunday but it looks like it will get into the $ 140+ million territory by early next week. Hope it holds -- as Mamma Mia! ($ 144 M) and Les Miserables ($ 148.8 M) domestic box office results are almost in plain sight! La La Land ( $ 151 M)could also be within sight in maybe two weeks, if Showman results do not materially decline?


Jo

[jo]

New ways to enhance box office appeal --

[israruth]

Interesting comment on the latest Deadline Hollywood box office report: Jeff • on Feb 2, 2018 5:53 pm

"I just saw The Greatest Showman at a multiplex in their largest auditorium. Sold out. Simply astounding. It won’t be down 20+ percent this weekend. Take that to the bank."