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Originally Posted by -King-
Yeah if I'm going to see something weird and gimmicky I guess I'd rather see it live in person. At least then the performance aspect of it is interesting and engaging. A movie is less interesting because they can film a scene 100x to make it "perfect" and a lot of the tension of theater would be gone.
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It's not so much that movie musicals are doomed, so much as that's a tightrope to do the adaption properly.
When you envision a musical for stage, you are staging a single comprehensive spectacle that the audience can make individual personalized choices in how to consume. Dancers over here, light spectacle over there, a swirl of singing roles. You can focus your attention on specifics, or just taking in the entire thing, or just close your eyes and listen.
A camera makes all the choices. So if you have a weak link, a poor performer or an off tone of an overly emoted expression, and it ends up right in the center of the camera's eye, it can break everything. And once it's broken, the fantastical nature of musical theater means it usually stays broken, unless you follow up with a new spectacle to make people forget and reinvest.
Take one of the most successful movie musical adaptions ever, Grease. There's plenty of AWFUL mugging and cringy moments, but it consistently papers over it with great spectacle like the dance competition. Or a great humor break.
Also, in today's movie culture spectacle presumes CGI, but a creative creation envisioned for the stage is not well suited to CGI enhancement. The beauty of what is staged is the practical effects and the cohesion of the setting and visuals, as opposed to the infinite possibilities of CGI locked into a singular vision imposed by the camera.
Perhaps, with contemporary movie expectations, you have to decide between an intentionally sparse stagey presentation, or something wholly created for film, like Moulin Rouge or Romeo+Juliet. Or cohesive concepts like Tommy or The Wall, as opposed to a dramatic narrative.
One other aspect that hampers movie adaptions of existing stage works, is that your core audience is already deeply emotionally invested in an existing vision. Even if you 'improve' on what they have in their hearts, it's still 'different' from what they fell in love with. So the improvement has to be astounding or it will still generate conflict and emotional consternation for your biggest fans. Kind of like what Star Wars is going through, on steroids.