The 5 Most Expensive Musicals in Broadway History

this video is brought to you by squarespace whether it's a giant chandelier crashing onto a stage or a giant tire taking a sacrificial cat to heaven broadway is no stranger to spectacle while the average budget for a musical in new york city's theater district is around 8 to 12 million dollars every so often a show comes around that blows that number into the stratosphere however sometimes bigger isn't always better and often the bigger the budget the harder the fall now there are a lot of musicals out there but for the purpose of this list we'll only be ranking the biggest budget original musicals with all the numbers adjusted for inflation so sorry music man revival you got trouble again i'm brendan from weight in the wings and these are the five most expensive musicals in broadway history but first i want to talk to you a little bit about this video's sponsor squarespace as a creative one of the most difficult things to do is authentically present yourself to others you know how awesome you are and your work is but getting other people to see that can be a struggle especially if you don't have a multi-million dollar budget to do so thankfully squarespace makes it easier than ever to make a professional and clean site that places your personality front and center right now you can get 10 off the purchase of your first website or domain by checking out squarespace.com weight in the wings and using code weight in the wings now let's dive in number five frozen by 2018 disney's theatrical arm proved itself as a multi-billion dollar money maker turning frozen the company's highest grossing animated film into a broadway musical just made sense however frozen's journey to the great white way was much more difficult and costly than many of disney's other attempts the musical went through three choreographers two different actresses playing elsa two directors and two set designers all before their first tryout run in denver the show cost a total of 30 million dollars to stage thanks in part to a 40-person cast an 8 000 pound video wall with more than 7 million led lights 19 projectors 300 costumes and additional fees to stage the show in the st james theater a venue that disney didn't own after a disappointing showing at the tony awards and on the billboard music charts it wasn't very surprising that frozen was one of the first musicals to be left out in the cold when covet hit while it never reached the same success as beauty and the beast or aladdin it is believed that frozen did recoup its capitalization number 4. shrek as the great poet once said somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me and when it came to broadway jeffrey katzenberg definitely got rolled originally the head of disney's movie studio katzenberg left the company on bad terms in 1994 and decided to start his own animation company named dreamworks the studio released a number of moderate successes but shrek in 2001 was the company's first big hit still fueled with resentment and wanting to take the fight to disney katzenberg and dreamworks wanted to turn shrek into a broadway musical mimicking the same formula that originally found disney's success dreamworks recruited a theater dream team with a script by pulitzer prize winner david lindsay a bear and a score by revered composer janine tassori shrek the musical was a spectacle unlike anything broadway had seen before with a giant set that included three turntables a 12 foot high magic mirror that was animated in real time a 17 foot high dragon puppet a giant bridge a giant castle and a giant gingerbread man but the technical elements didn't stop there they also found their way into the costumes via a mechanical nose for pinocchio mechanical ears for donkey and heavy prosthetics for shrek himself when all was said and done the production reportedly cost 31.5 million dollars even though shrek the musical received favorable reviews and ate tony nominations the great recession really took a toll on the show as fewer families were spending money on broadway tickets failing to make more than its weekly running costs shrek the musical closed just a little over a year after it opened number three king kong there was a 20 foot tall puppet how couldn't it be one of the most expensive shows in broadway history based on the 1933 film and the 1976 film and the 2005 film king kong on broadway always had one main selling point it was the puppet at 2 400 pounds of steel and styrofoam the puppet wasn't just the standout part of the show it was also a big reason for the lofty 36.5 million dollar price tag the original plan was to move the show to new york in 2014 a year after it originally opened in australia with spider-man turn off the dark finishing its run at the fox woods theater the kong team was ready to move in but after multiple delays and changes in the creative team the musical wouldn't actually open until november 8th 2018. during the australia run critics loved the puppet but weren't favorable towards the actual script or story unsurprisingly the critics in the states felt the same way producers were hopeful that opening the show so close to the christmas season would bring in more tourist traffic thus helping them outpace the negative reviews but on august 18th 2019 with over seven hundred thousand dollars in weekly running costs and empty hands after the tony awards money ultimately killed the beast number two the lion king have you ever driven by a ruby tuesday and just thought whoa that thing's still open if so then you basically know what it's like walking past the lion king on broadway the only difference is the lion king still consistently brings in over 2 million dollars a week after the success of beauty and the beast disney was approached to get involved in new york city's efforts to clean up times square though reluctant at first disney eventually purchased the new amsterdam theater on 42nd street once the home of ziegfeld's follies the immaculate interior was now eroded and run over with decay as the company worked to secure tax breaks and financial support from the city disney ceo michael eisner eventually decided what the theater's first show would be the lion king eisner knew disney couldn't get away with another quote unquote theme park show like beauty and the beast and wanted the lion king to be more abstract and unpredictable the last thing he wanted was a literal recreation of the movie on stage the heads of the theater division peter schneider and thomas schumacher made a call to experimental theater director julie taymor taymor was as avant-garde as they come and she even had to give periodic presentations to disney execs just to ensure her creative vision didn't fall out of line with the company's values after taymor pitched a radical idea where simba got corrupted by a bunch of half human half animal inhabitants in a sahara style las vegas schumacher told taymor i don't want to do your version but if your version is really important to you then i guess we're at the place where we don't do this together ultimately taymor abandoned the las vegas idea and instead leaned into the south african style of the original film she infused the musical with colorful abstract sets dozens of hand-sculpted masks and 232 puppets when it opened on november 13th 1997 the lion king easily clinched the top spot as broadway's most expensive show coming in at 36 36.9 million dollars the musical went on to earn disney its first tony award and julie taymor made history as the first woman to win the best director tony 25 years after its debut on broadway the lion king still plays to near full-out houses and has brought in over nine billion dollars globally hakuna matata am i right number one spider-man turn off the dark did she ever have any doubts if lion king was a testament to what taymor could do under supervision then spider-man was a warning of what could happen when she was totally unleashed considering spider-man was the first time david garfinkel ever produced a show he lacked the experience and ability to put his foot down on creative decisions as a result taymor transformed the simple comic book tale into an elaborate greek myth complete with a geek chorus seamstress acrobats and arachne trying to get peter parker to sleep with her when it came to the actual web swinging taymor wanted the actors to literally fly over the top of the audience the foxwoods theater underwent costly renovations to install a giant automated track that mimicked what the nfl uses for their flying cameras with each flight track programmed to a certain actor they also planned for a one million dollar spiderweb net that would have draped across the audience for the actors to fight on in the finale ultimately the plan was scrapped but not until after the net was already made even without the web net there were still huge sets that flipped and folded like a giant pop-up book colossal video screens and lest we forget the gigantic baby cutout as tabor unrelentingly leaned into the spectacle spider-man turn off the dark continued to get more expensive after initial delays due to lack of funds a bunch of loans and the great recession the budget for the show ballooned when the musical finally opened the 30 million dollar budget had transformed into a 76 million dollar circus even though spider-man pulled in great box office numbers the astronomical 1 million dollars a week in running costs were way too high for the show to sustain itself and it eventually spun its final web at a 60 million dollar loss to investors the story of spider-man turn off the dark is honestly an odyssey in its own right so you can click on this video to learn more of the 10 wildest stories from the doomed musicals backstage history [Music]

Channel: Wait in the Wings

Views: 120,530

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Id: TPb9Tb0sYsY

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022