HAIRSPRAY
Following the success of the hit movie musical Hairspray, based on the smash stage show of the same name, New Line Cinema has asked John Waters – the man behind the original non-musical film that inspired both of these hits – to pen a sequel. Neil Meron and Craig Zadan would return as producers, as would director-choreographer Adam Shankman and songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who would provide a brand new score for the sequel. No casting has been announced, although New Line hopes to gather as many of the original film’s stars together for round 2.
A very wise and handsome man once said: “Every generation needs its Grease 2.” Watch this space for news as it comes, folks…
Musical Cyberspace 
I was actually thinking of Grease 2 while reading this. The possibility and probability of it all is that it will be like that and just be a story set in a similar location with completely different characters that just tries to get an audience by using a name that is already known. That’s the impression I got from Grease 2, at least. Seriously, what was the idea? Let’s reverse the boy-girl roles in this one and bring back one character and call it a sequel?
Anyway, since my knowledge of Hairspray is particularly limited, I have nothing to say about the movie itself being sequel-able. I’m not much of a sequel/prequel fan myself, but it can always be done well. Look at Shrek 2, which I actually might’ve liked more than the original. Of course they ruined it by doing a third part. Mmh, but then the Toy Story example comes to mind again. Undeniably, Toy Story 2 is far funner.
But that’s sequels in general. Disney has done some horrible sequels a couple of years ago, that luckily enough were released straight to video/DVD. Seriously, Cinderella 2 was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Ahh, sequels.
Well, I’m kinda on both sides of the coin here. On one hand, the elitist-theater geek side is roaring in protest as well as praying that it won’t completely flop and give Hairspray a terrible name. On the other hand, the giddy fanboy side is just hoping that Amanda Bynes gets to sing more. 😀
I can see why they’d want to make a sequel. The movie did amazingly well at the box office and, in my opinion, it was a great adaptation of the musical. I absolutely loved it (Nikki Blonsky was 9000% better than Marissa Janet Winokur) and if the sequel’s good, I’ll be satisfied. So long as it doesn’t suck, who cares?
This is my opinion. I’m going to have to disagree on this one. Strip all of that other stuff away from a film and you have the performances, which are to me, the heart of any film. Without them, you have nothing. To me, all of that other stuff is just icing on the cake. The performers are what bring the characters to life and make you believe in them and really care about them. Without the performances, what do you have? Random buildings blowing up, cool shots, and nice background music. I’d much rather sacrifice one of the things that you mentioned in exchange for awesome performances. There’s my two cents.
The performances are very important, but you can’t say a movie sucks based on a performance. The movie is the production and the performances. Would you ever say a bad film is good based on a terrific performance? Of course not, you would say, “It’s a terrible movie but (insert actor’s name) was incredible!”
Juno, There Will Be Blood and Superbad were some of my top favorite movies of 2007. There were no big special effects, no fancy cinematography or anything special in any of those movies. They were 100% about the performance and the storytelling.
Excuse me, there is a ton of thought put into the cinematography, the lighting, the direction in any movie. I hated Juno, but I realize it was well recieved by the critics. But, there was still a lot of thought put into the production. Also, you brought up the storytelling. The storytelling of Hairspray was also well-done. So, there’s another reason you can’t judge a movie based on the performances. Same with movies like Brokeback Mountain. They don’t win Best Director because of the performances!
Would you judge a musical production based upon the performance of one of the actors?
Really? A sequel? I’ve never been a big sequel fan. I am a big fan of the Hairspray franchise. Love the live show; loved the movies. Don’t really want to see a sequel. Don’t want to see the storyline shift away from Tracy. Don’t want to see more of Amanda Bynes.
Yes. Alexander Gemingani single-handedly ruined Les Misérables for me.
What about the material? A good production and good performance of bad material can suck.
I mentioned the script in another post after Trevor mentioned Juno being all about the performances and the storytelling. The story needs to be well written for the movie to be good. Good and great films are a balance of all aspects. A film wouldn’t be very good if it had great direction and cinematography with a bad script and mediocre performances. But simply one bad performance in a film or, in the case of Hairspray, a mediocre performance, isn’t enough to slate it as a terrible, or even bad film.
I appreciate if you don’t like the film. But the fact stands that it was a huge critical success. You can’t take a good, well-rated film and say it’s terrible because of one performance. You can say you don’t like it, but the fact remains it’s a good film.