Big Broadway musicals have actually had a pretty solid track record at the box office in the last decade. While Rock of Ages underperformed this past summer, titles like Chicago, Mamma Mia!, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street managed to make big money (and if they didn't do it here, they did it internationally). And so now we come to Les Miserables, director Tom Hooper's adaptation of Claude-Michel Schönberg award winning stage musical. The film will be in theaters on Christmas Day and has been boosted by positive buzz from critics, but how will it perform?
If the numbers at Fandango are accurate, it should do pretty damn well. The company has announced that Les Miserables has become not only the #1 advanced ticket-seller among all Christmas Day releases (beating out 2009's Sherlock Holmes), but it is also now become the #1 advanced ticket-seller among all musicals (beating out 2006's Dreamgirls). The most recent statistics show that Hooper's film is currently making up 40% of the site's sales, beating out The Hobbit which stands at 32%. Zero Dark Thirty and Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D trails them with 6% and 3%, respectively.
Les Miserables stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, a man once arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a child, living in pre-revolution France trying to work his way back into society while being constantly hounded by his captor, Javert (Russell Crowe). The film also stars Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonahm Carter, Eddie Redmayne, and Samantha Barks. For more about the movie, be sure to head over to our Blend Film Database.
