The musical genre had been littered with flops including \u201cAcross the Universe,\u201d \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cRock of Ages.\u201d Even more worrisome, \u201cLa La Land\u201d was an original story with entirely new songs, making it an especially risky proposition.
\u201cWe were really taking a leap of faith,\u201d said Erik Feig, co-president of Lionsgate\u2019s motion picture group. \u201cThere\u2019s no way any focus group could\u2019ve said, \u2018I want to see something like \u201cLa La Land\u201d before they saw \u201cLa La Land.\u201d\u2019\u201d
Lionsgate\u2019s gamble is paying off handsomely. \u201cLa La Land\u201d is widely considered the front-runner for this year\u2019s best-picture Oscar. Better yet, it\u2019s a box-office winner. The movie, which cost $30 million to make, has grossed $174 million worldwide, an impressive return that is sure to grow after nominations for the Feb. 26 Oscars ceremony are announced early Tuesday.
\u201cLa La Land\u201d is a welcome success for Lionsgate, the Santa Monica studio that has struggled to produce huge hits since its blockbuster \u201cHunger Games\u201d series ended more than a year ago. It has suffered flops such as \u201cGods of Egypt\u201d and \u201cBlair Witch,\u201d and reliable young adult franchises, including \u201cThe Divergent Series\u201d and \u201cThe Twilight Saga,\u201d have gone by the wayside, leaving the studio without the big-brand movies that other studios depend on.
But with \u201cLa La Land,\u201d Lionsgate has shown it can still deliver big numbers without teen vampires and sci-fi heroes, said box-office analyst Bruce Nash of Nash Information Services.
\u201cIt’s a really good sign for Lionsgate,\u201d Nash said. \u201cIt’s something that branches out from their typical fare and something they need to do to compete against the six major studios.\u201d
\u201cLa La Land\u201d is expected to deliver profits well beyond the box office, and is set to make millions through video on demand and the company\u2019s TV deal with HBO. The soundtrack is a top seller on the Billboard charts, and Feig has said the movie could even become a stage production.
Feig first learned of the movie at the Sundance Film Festival three years ago.
In a corner of a bustling coffee shop in Park City, Utah, he and colleague Patrick Wachsberger sat down with new filmmaker Damien Chazelle, who was looking for a home for his \u201cLa La Land\u201d script.
Over espresso and water, Chazelle pitched his movie musical about a jazz pianist and an aspiring actress, a modern homage to the song-and-dance films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The three of them bonded over their shared love of classic Hollywood musicals and the 1960s French classic \u201cThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg.\u201d
Feig was smitten with Chazelle\u2019s work in another jazz-themed movie, \u201cWhiplash,\u201d and thought \u201cLa La Land\u201d would appeal to a broad swath of the moviegoing public. But that was a theory without proof. It had been years since an original musical had delivered blockbuster grosses.
The last time a musical won a best picture Oscar was 2002\u2019s \u201cChicago.\u201d There have been successes, including \u201cLes Miserables\u201d and \u201cMamma Mia,\u201d but a musical with an original story and new songs was an even tougher sell. The project had languished in development for years at Focus Features before Chazelle, 32, and composer Justin Hurwitz decided to shop it elsewhere.
The two, who\u2019d been close friends since their undergrad days at Harvard, where they roomed and jammed together, started working on \u201cLa La Land\u201d about six years ago.
To make it work, Feig knew the studio would have to put up significant financial resources. Chazelle, in typical indie pitch mode, had told the studio he could deliver the film with a production budget of about $18 million. But Feig, who read the script at the festival and has overseen the \u201cStep Up\u201d movies with Summit, thought it would take much more. The movie called for hundreds of extras, weeks of training and rehearsal for the stars, and an opening sequence that required the studio to shut down a freeway interchange. The production’s $30-million budget was co-financed by L. A.-based Black Label Media and China\u2019s TIK Films.
\u201cOnce we decided to do it, we were all in,\u201d Feig said. \u201cYou don\u2019t make a movie like that halfway. We made it in a way where we spent enough money to put Damien\u2019s vision on-screen.\u201d
Lionsgate hired producer Marc Platt, who has produced movie musicals such as \u201cNine\u201d and \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d to shepherd the film. Platt and fellow producers Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz knew casting would be pivotal. Miles Teller (\u201cWhiplash\u201d) and Emma Watson (\u201cHarry Potter\u201d) were attached to the project at first, but those plans fell through because of scheduling conflicts. Instead, they landed Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who\u2019d displayed on-screen chemistry in the 2011 romantic comedy \u201cCrazy, Stupid, Love.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s a small story with big ideas and big emotions, and it needed two larger-than-life actors for the movie to really lift off,\u201d Platt said. \u201cOnce Ryan and Emma signed on, we were off to the races.\u201d
Production at famed Los Angeles locations, including Griffith Observatory and Fern Dell Park , presented challenges. The musical numbers called for long takes and short windows of time for shooting during \u201cmagic hour,\u201d when the evening outdoor lighting was just the right shade.
The opening number \u201cAnother Day of Sun,\u201d in which motorists sing and dance on top of their cars as the camera zips around, required the closure of an EZ Pass lane connecting the 110 and 105 freeways \u2014 twice \u2014 in temperatures of more than 105 degrees.
There were also excruciating decisions along the way. The filmmakers scrapped a catchy, uptempo song titled \u201cLa La Land\u201d because it didn\u2019t fit the story.
Once the movie was ready, the studio faced the next crucial step \u2014 how to market it. Rather than sell it as a more straightforward romantic comedy, Lionsgate decided to put the music and the emotion front and center. The first teaser trailers released last summer emphasized the melancholy tone of the movie and featured the more downbeat songs \u201cCity of Stars\u201d and \u201cAudition,\u201d instead of the more joyful, brightly colored moments.
\u201cThe studio came to understand exactly what the movie was, supported it and ultimately didn’t try to make it into something different,\u201d Platt said. \u201cThat was true from production to marketing to distribution.\u201d
Lionsgate has carefully built the box-office momentum for \u201cLa La Land.\u201d The studio released \u201cLa La Land\u201d in five theaters Dec. 9, and expanded the release over the following weeks to take advantage of positive word-of-mouth and its record-breaking seven Golden Globe Awards.
The movie has its detractors, some of whom complain about the relative lack of songs, the technical quality of the singing and dancing, its familiar \u201cfools who dream\u201d subject matter, and Chazelle\u2019s questionable treatment of jazz. But that does not appear to have slowed the film\u2019s box-office momentum, or its accolades.
\u201cLa La Land\u201d has grossed about $90 million in ticket sales from the U. S. and Canada so far, and is expected to expand its release to include more than 2,500 domestic theaters this weekend, after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces Oscar nominations Tuesday. \u201cLa La Land\u201d has scored internationally, grossing a combined $84 million to date in countries such as Britain and Korea.
These days it\u2019s rare for a studio to strike box-office gold with a movie not based on a preexisting brand or comic book, with recent exceptions including 20th Century Fox \u2019s \u201cHidden Figures.\u201d Feig said he hopes \u201cLa La Land\u2019s\u201d success could encourage Lionsgate, and the industry at large, to take more gambles on different kinds of movies.
\u201cIt gives us ammunition for when we want to greenlight anything that is a little left of center,\u201d Feig said. \u201cAny genre that\u2019s done really well will work well with an audience…. What I hope to see is more leaps of faith.\u201d
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Joel Edgerton talks about staying truthful to the real-life story of „Loving. „<\/p>\n