Big brands are game for Monopolizing Broadway
Hasbro not ruling out bringing its other big-name products to stages of Great White Way
Never mind passing Go; Monopoly is advancing directly to Broadway.
Hasbro Inc. announced in June that it has partnered with producers the Araca Group to bring a new musical based on the 81-year-old board game to the Great White Way.
While a duet between Monopoly tokens, such as the Iron and the Wheelbarrow, doesn’t sound like it will fill the Community Chest, the game’s loosely sketched plot points don’t discourage Hasbro senior vice-president Simon Waters. “The Monopoly brand’s lack of a traditional, built-in storyline allows us to explore new, creative possibilities and have some fun with the narrative,” he said.
Major elements have yet to be developed — “We’re still determining casting, musical scores and the overarching creative concepts,” Waters continues — but producers are tinkering with an “immersive” concept that would see “the opportunity to be part of the show itself” (presumably beyond declaring bankruptcy over Broadway ticket prices).
Having already struck gold by developing its Transformers brand into a series of four films, which collectively have grossed $3.8 billion (U.S.) worldwide, Hasbro hasn’t ruled out bringing any of its brands, which include Play-Doh, Stretch Armstrong and My Little Pony, to Broadway.
“We place major emphasis on storytelling across all of our franchise brands, so at the end of the day, each and every one has the potential to make a splash onstage,” Waters says.
Adapted properties have been Broadway’s babies since 1997, when The Lion King first roared onto the strip. As of 2014, the musical had earned more than $6.2 billion worldwide in ticket sales alone, the most not just for a live production, but for a title in any entertainment medium, significantly outpacing the $987 million the film earned worldwide in theatres.
Adaptations rule the Broadway strip. Of the 24 musicals currently on Broadway, only four are originals: Chicago, The Book of Mormon, the Cirque du Soleil musical Paramour and Something Rotten!
Michael Rubinoff, the associate dean of the department of visual and performing arts at Sheridan College, says there’s been a shift in the industry in the past 15 years. “There was a time when the film companies were like, sure, that film would make a great musical, let’s do a deal!” Rubinoff recalls. “But what really changed the industry was Wicked.”
Universal Studios originally wanted to turn Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel about the witches of Oz into a film before they were talked into launching it as a musical. Today, it is the third highest-grossing Broadway production of all time, having made more than a billion dollars since opening in 2003.
“It’s made more than a movie would have ever made,” Rubinoff says. “And now of course the movie of the musical is in development.”
Today, the six top studios all have a role in dusting off old films for the stage. Disney has had its own in-house theatre division since 1994, with musicals based on Frozen and The Princess Bride currently in development.
Universal is developing Back to the Future and Bombshell, the show-within-ashow about Marilyn Monroe from the TV series Smash. Sony is developing Tootsie. And Warner Bros.’ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, currently onstage in London, will open on Broadway in April. Warner is also developing stage productions based on Beetlejuice, 17 Again, Dave and Dog Day Afternoon.
In 2013, Fox partnered with Broadway superproducer Kevin McCollum, a Tony winner for Rent, Avenue Q and In the Heights, to develop nine to 12 musicals based on its films. They are currently developing The Devil Wears Prada and Mrs. Doubtfire.
“As ticket prices get higher, people do want something that has brand,” he says. “People want that extra comfort of, I know the story, I like the story, I want to see what it is like onstage.”
He cites Motown the Musical, currently on Broadway, as an example. “We opened cold on Broadway. But I knew that because of the interest in the title I was able to put a big M for Motown and people are like, I know what that is.”
McCollum was also the producer on the 2006 Broadway production of The Drowsy Chaperone, the Canadian musical co-written by Don McKellar that began at the Toronto Fringe Festival. “It’s very hard to pre-sell a ticket to The Drowsy Chaperone,” McCollum admits. “We have taken two of the most underutilized words in the English language and put them in our title.”
Though brand recognition might catch a Broadway enthusiast’s eye, it certainly isn’t what’s driven the success of Broadway’s reigning king, Hamilton.
“Who would have thought that a musical that was inspired by this very dry biography would be a turning point for Broadway?” Rubinoff says. “You really need a compelling story and a compelling way to musicalize it.”
He cites Come From Away, a musical about the people whose flights were grounded in Newfoundland after Sept. 11, as a story that ticks those boxes. “In Newfoundland, music is so part of that culture,” he says. “That Celtic rock sound was in their blood.”
The musical will open at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto in November before its Broadway debut in February. And while Come From Away will be up against the lions, witches and Mormons of Broadway, Rubinoff notes that brand awareness isn’t the highest predictor of Broadway glory. It’s word-of-mouth.
“If the show doesn’t deliver, you could lose everything,” he says. With stakes like those, Monopoly will be right at home on Broadway.