Posted 6:41 PM by Gene

Speaking of Robert Thompson, every time there's a big hit aimed squarely at news hacks we get malarkey about "historic change" in the culture. The Fox News publicist Roger Friedman's blurb that the news-hack and urban-area favorite Chicago has inspired somebody to perhaps remake Fiddler on the Roof for TV (WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!) reminds me of the truckloads, the mountains of BS that followed the premiere of The Producers on Broadway. No less a drone than John Lahr ("I'm BERT LAHR'S SON! Remember? THE COWARDLY LION?"), he who opined on 9/11 that our government may have been behind it, spoke of an undying masterwork that turned in "the biggest numbers ever in the history of Broadway." Ben Brantley, ringleader of the raves, spoke of ecstasy beyond the Second Coming. Everyone agreed The Face of The Broadway Musical had been Changed -- FOREVER. Yet recently the New York Post made a fatal admission: the producers of The Producers (which include Harvey Weinstein and Cheap Channel) had to launch a massive TV campaign because people weren't buying tickets to the immortal production the way they did after it got called immortal. Why? Because -- now prepare for a shock -- it was a STAR VEHICLE. Once Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the show, apparently, it had to fend for itself, and even Ben Brantley conceded (in his rave-of-raves review!) that the jokes were -- and I quote -- "hoary." Perusal of recent Varietys indicates the show is no longer a 100% sellout. And that flood of great new musicals some predicted? What have we had in the last two years? A future bus-and-truck-company favorite based on the movie Hairspray, The Best of ABBA (?!?!?), and Billy Joel's Greatest Hits (oooooooh-wah a-oooooooooh-wah a-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh-WAH!). In a letter I sent to The New Yorker (I don't want to know if they printed it) I suggested that despite the earth-moving PR more people heard of Michael Vick (who was drafted shortly after the epoch-making premiere), and that he made more money.

Can one modern hit really change the course of show-biz -- HISTORY? Years ago (to speak in the manner of Richard Corliss) some former star of westerns made an anti-western that may have won an Oscar® (if Dick Corliss can't remember the name, neither can I). Did that launch a flood of westerns? No, the Valenti business can make only three things: bastard screwball comedies, bastard Buck Rogers remakes and bastard Shaw Brothers chopsockey. One fluke hit will change this? (NOTE: In their hanger's-on report on the continuing soap opera at the top of Viacom Gerry Fabrikant and Bill Carter state one reason The Brow and Twilight Zon don't get along is that Zon doesn't like the cyclical movie biz. Get it? Cyclical.)