It's good campy fun (is camp dead?) evoking much of the campy fun of the original movie with the story changes a bit for the stage. They, the producers, are clearly trying to make a money maker. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think they should have been trying to make a good show. They have the ingredients—writers and choreographers from such (subversive/alternative) fan favorites as Avenue Q and In the Heights. The cast was good, as was most of the writing, but audience members weren't leaving with a memorable tune to hum or any particular scene to stick out in their/our minds.It needs work.
Seeing it with 40 or so bears certainly made it more fun for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and had a great time. But I am also distracted by small, shiny objects and am easily amused so take that as the salt with your cocktail.
Plenty of eye candy too, particularly for the straight guys with a thing for cheerleaders. I can imagine the costume designer looking over the buff, recently graduated cheerleading cast and saying to himself/herself, "Him with the arms: tank top. And tight shorts."
It wasn't good enough to merit purchasing merch, much less the cast album if there was one. I did go home and look around online for clips or song samples though as I wanted to review some of them (as they were pleasant and clever but not very memorable). No such luck with the songs, but I did find some news, and it soured me on the entire experience.
The Bring It On: The Musical people never paid for the rights to make Bring It On! into a musical, and now the creator/writer/rights holder of the original Bring It On! and the subsequent franchise is suing them through the writers guild who has the say so in these matters.
The musical producers claimed it's all original material and so they owed nothing to the Bring It On rights holder.
OMFG. Seriously and for reals?
The makers/rights holders of Bring It On! made four more Bring It On! [colon] Sequel Title movies. I'm surprised there's not a straight-to-video Bring It On!: Electric Boogaloo. The Asian-themed sequel is Bring It On! Tokyo Drift.
Sure, all the character names are different, the plot and love interests are altered, and it's a musical, but I don't think they even have a prima facie case for separate and distinct originality. Maybe it's an intracy of "how many words have changed" thing of writer's guild rules but let's compare Bring It On!: The Musical to Bring It On! (the original movie)
- Both are the story of an affluent white-girl squad competing against an urban black squad for regionals and nationals cheerleading competitions, with cheer camp drama.
- The white squad wears red and white; the black squad wears green and yellow.
- The white blond protagonist ultimately hooks up with a cheerleader-mocking cute boy who makes music and mix tapes for her.
- The white cheerleader captain get's All About Eve'd out of her squad and starts a squad at her new of-color school.
- An unpopular overweight girl becomes cool at the new school where they appreciate booty.
- Rich squad mascot: instead of the Bulls, they're the Bucs*
- Urban squad mascot: instead of the Clovers, they're the Irish.
It's fucking called Bring It On! The Musical.
QEFD
*Technically the "toros," which are bulls, and "pirates" which are buccaneers. Same thing.
Update: According to an "anonymous" source and without external verification, it appears that the producers settled with Jessica Bendinger, creator of the original Bring It On! movie.
Which is a good thing, considering the movie people kind of screwed her too. Playbill reported "that Bendinger did not share in any revenue stream from the four subsequent "Bring It On" films, which were spawned after the first hit and released direct to DVD."
The Hollywood Reporter has the original story:
The screenwriter says she first heard about the show “in the worst way.” She had been working on a stage version of her own for six years and was developing the project with former Universal production chief Marc Platt, producer of the Broadway hit Wicked. But then she learned that a New York theater attorney not affiliated with her had been heard to say at a cocktail party that he was shopping the theatrical rights to the movie – the same rights she had been seeking to exploit.I went back to the program and indeed on the credits sheet, "Inspired by the Motion Picture Bring It On by Jessica Bendinger" appears in tiny, tiny type under the author credits.
...
“I was shocked,” Bendinger says. “A writer works all her life trying to have a first hit. I was not treated well, given the revenue stream I created for them.”
The film, which grossed $90 million worldwide, stars Kirsten Dunst and inspired four direct to video followups. The three most recent video outings logged $18 million to $24 million in sales each, according to the-numbers.com, but Bendinger did not share in the revenue.
Her case “underscores the horrors of being a successful writer in Hollywood,” says her attorney, Neville Johnson of Johnson & Johnson. After cutting her out of the film franchise she created, the company, in Bendinger’s view, is taking the same approach to the stage production.
4 comments:
So your homework, Guy....They wne into arbitration a long time ago, and settled.
Maybe you should check the date of the news you read online! That suit was settled a long time ago and credit is also being given to Jessica Bendinger in the show credits. It is very disappointing to read critics with obvious shallow research. By the way, I have also attended the show more than once and loved it and I am humming the tunes. Also, you completely soured me on any review you post .
Guys—this isn't a professional theater review site. It's a personal blog. Chill. You two seem to have taken these observations very personally. Makes me wonder why.
You charge "shallow research?"—he just went to a show with his friends and shared his experience. As for "settled a long time ago"— Not as of September 16, 2011 (the date of the LA Times piece). Just over four months is hardly a long time. And even if so, he's still has a point: if they settled, they lost. Bendinger deserved the credit and they were forced to give it. In any case, it was still a sleazy move not to secure the rights in the first place.
Hi. I didn't find any news related to the resolution of this case, and I looked. Granted, following a basic tenant of information seeking, I only spent as much effort looking for the information as finding that information was worth to me, which is not much. But basic searches on entertainment news outlets and the LA Times (source of the original story) yielded no results. September 16 is recent, particularly for legal matters.
This is not a theater review. I've written those. They look much different and appear in actual news outlets. This is me saying "hey, I went to this show with some bears and here's what I though about it" in my blog. If you look, the previous post was a menstruation joke. This is not Playbill. When I do get into it on a topic, I do the research, and provide sources.
If you say it was settled, I'll take your word for it. Bendinger's doesn't appear anywhere on their site—either on their homepage or their Facebook pages (which the home page directs to).
I went back to the program and indeed on the credits sheet, "Inspired by the Motion Picture Bring It On by Jessica Bendinger" appears in tiny, tiny type under the author credits.
I was able to look that up because I saved the program. Like I said, I actually LIKED the show and I came out very enthusiastic. It was the news story that soured me on the whole experience. It made me feel sort of "had" or "used." They wanted the Bring It On fans (and their money), but were stealing something that wasn't theirs. You can be damn sure that if someone wanted to make Stars Wars: The Musical, they would have to go through Lucas first.
Nothing I said in the post is untrue. And regardless of if they ultimately settled or not, they were still dicks to try to profit off someone else's creative property. And if they did settle, then the PTB clearly agreed.
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