By Jennifer R Jones | Posted on August 08, 2014 10:56 PM
The Jersey Boys Film Has Received Mixed Reviews And A Modest Box Office Response, Which Is Not Helping The Broadway Box Office For Jersey Boys.
The Dodgers’ Hopes For "Jersey Boys" On Broadway Are Dashed
Dodger Theatricals, the producing team behind Broadway’s Jersey Boys, hasn’t had any new tricks in a while. Their most recent Broadway production is Matilda, which has been running since April 2013.
Though that show has been performing quite well at the box office, the Dodgers are only second in command there, hanging onto the coattails of the Royal Shakespeare Company who originally produced the musical in the United Kingdom.
"Jersey Boys" Success In The Box Office
Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ biggest hit in the last decade is the jukebox musical Jersey Boys, based on the life and incorporating the music of The Four Seasons. Jersey Boys has been running since November 2005 at the August Wilson Theatre, often to stupendous feats of success.
Not only did the show win the 2006 Tony Award for Best Musical (amongst its 4 wins and 8 nominations), but it has had excellent box office success over the years. It broke the August Wilson Theatre’s box office record for highest weekly gross for the 30th time in January 2010, and it is presently the 14th longest running show on Broadway.
The “Jersey Boys” Movie
In light of this success, the decision was made to adapt Jersey Boys into a film, following in the tradition of many musical to movie adaptations of recent years including Les Misérables, Chicago, Hairspray, and Rent.
Unlike all of those adaptations, however, the biggest name involved with Jersey Boys is the director, Clint Eastwood. Eastwood opted to choose actors from the stage musical casts rather than filling it with big Hollywood stars.
Movie Received Mix Reviews Hurting The Musical
The theory was that the name of the property itself – Jersey Boys – would be enough to attract large audiences to the movie theater. However, the movie received mixed reviews, and the box office response has been fairly modest.
With a budget of $40 million, the film has so far posted a domestic gross of $46,377,524 as of August 7, 2014. Though this is less than 2 months past its release date of June 20, 2014, expectations were that the box office response would be greater.
Film Reception Not Improving Broadway Grosses As Hoped
Though the Dodgers are not producers on the film, it is certain that their licensing agreement allowed for a cut of the profits of the movie. More importantly, they must have been hoping that a successful movie run would indirectly boost profits for the still running Broadway production, as the brand power of the show would increase.
However, Jersey Boys on Broadway is nowhere near the financial heights that it once had reached. When it broke the theatre’s box office record, for example, it had grossed $1,440,456 in a week.
Summer Success Isn't Enough
Though this summer has been more successful than the spring and winter that preceded it, the box offices grosses since June have still only been hovering around $800,000 to $900,000, which is around 70% to 80% of the box office gross potential. Therefore, to the disappointment of the floundering Dodgers, the movie does not seem to be re-launching Jersey Boys as a top grossing hit.
Have The Dodgers Run Out Of Good Ideas?
Moreover, Micheal David's Dodgers seem to be losing steam on their own development, as they haven’t announced a new show in a while. Before Matilda, their most recent show was a revue, An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, and before that it was the notorious flop Elling which only ran for a total of nine regular performances in November 2010.
Resting on the success of the RSC’s Matilda, the Dodgers now seem to have run out of good ideas. Unfortunately, it does not look like the Jersey Boys movie was the golden ticket that had been hoping for and David and his renegade team will be looking for a way out, creatively speaking, pretty soon.
