Something you never hear when a biopic of a musician is announced?
“I’m so excited to see that!”
No other movie genre inspires such a collective exasperation from the public while still getting made by Hollywood en masse.
Nevertheless, in an attempt to get free-spending millennials to give a fig about them, plans for a Britney Spears film were revealed last week. Huzzah…
Directed by Jon M. Chu of “Wicked” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” the untitled Universal project will be based on her bestselling memoir “The Woman in Me.”
You can close your eyes and picture the whole two hours without having to spend a cent.
Start with the Louisiana childhood and cut to her big break on “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Ooh, there’s Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling and Christina Aguilera! Then whooshes in her music career with the teen breakout hit “…Baby One More Time.”
But the tone darkens as the drama creeps in: Her scandal-plagued twenties and, of course, the formation of her father’s much maligned conservatorship. Free Britney! There will be messy marriages and rocky relationships with her kids. Or that will be all glossed over because she’s involved.
Will Brit be a hit? Or will Hollywood cry “Oops! We did it again!”
So many music biographies that sound like 100% sure things prove disastrous flops.
This May, the Amy Winehouse film “Back to Black” grossed $51 million off a $30 million budget (that’s before tens of millions in marketing costs). Horrendous, it was a tragedy two times over.
More surprising, considering her many chart toppers, was the 2022 failure of the Whitney Houston flick “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” That dreadful dud did $59.8 million off a $45 million budget (again, not factoring in expensive ads and promotion).
A few more: “Respect” about Aretha Franklin ($33 million); “Jersey Boys” about the Four Seasons ($67.6 million); “Love & Mercy,” about the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson ($28.6 million).
Of course, there have been a sprinkle of notable successes. The most obvious is the 2018 Queen home run, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which grossed more than $900 million and was a Best Picture Oscar nominee.
And Baz Luhrmann’s stunner “Elvis” managed $288 million worldwide in 2022.
Why did they buck the trend? I reckon it’s because the life stories played second fiddle to cinematic flair.
The best part of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was a pulse-pounding reenactment of the 1985 Live Aid concert that made moviegoers feel like they were at a real Queen gig. You can’t beat word of mouth like that.
Luhrmann “Moulin Rouge”-ified The King far beyond a dramatized Wikipedia page. The movie was visually dazzling, non-traditional and actor Austin Butler was a revelation who fit snuggly into that spectacular vision.
Neither got caught up in being too informative or reverential, as these subpar dirges so often do.
And, yes, “Bob Marley: One Love” was a surprise seller earlier this year, grossing $177 million. But the Marley fandom is practically a lifestyle. They couldn’t not go see it.
Despite the headwinds, a lot of behind-the-times “Behind the Music”s are on the way.
First up in December is Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.”
With “Wonka” and “Dune,” Chalamet’s turning into a bona fide hitmaker. But do his young fans have any clue what “Like A Rolling Stone” is?
Next year, a Michael Jackson movie called “Michael” will star his nephew Jaafar in the title role. It’s claimed the script will include references to the sexual abuse allegations made against the “Billie Jean” singer. My guess is they moonwalk right over it.
Daisy Edgar-Jones of “Twisters” just bowed out of a Carole King picture. Smart!
And Sam Mendes (“1917”) plans to direct four Beatles biopics — one from each band member’s perspective. That self-indulgent announcement made me twist and shout in anguish.
Should these films wish to succeed, they cannot rely on the big names and popular songs and assume ticket-buyers will show up like nostalgic lemmings.
People demonstrably want big, only-at-the-movies experiences right now.
I take great heart in knowing that however the Britney Spears biopic turns out — and Chu is a great director — it won’t do nearly as well as the epic story of a 1940s theoretical physicist and bomb maker that most of its viewers had never heard of.
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