The Hollywood movie-to-Broadway musical pipeline is perhaps one of the most perilous journeys a project can take.
Sometimes, the yellow brick road is full of sunshine and good reviews. Sometimes, it’s littered with bad puppetry, injuries and songs that you could have blamed on ChatGPT – if it had existed at the time.
Over the years, the theatre world has become increasingly shameless at rifling through Hollywood’s dresser, pulling out any and every movie with a cult following and a 90 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. From iconic romcoms, sainted chic-flics and niche horror, there have been plenty of times where the only suitable response is “That is a musical?”
But that’s not to say there haven’t been punts which have proved to be a huge success. The Addams Family, Waitress, Legally Blonde, Billy Elliot – all films you wouldn’t naturally expect to find a kick line in.
So where is the line between spectacle and shocker? Well, below, we’ve rounded off a list of the Broadway musicals made from films which, in our opinion, probably didn’t need to exist.
1. King Kong
Starting off with the biggest example of losing the plot, literally, King Kong the Musical opened at the Broadway Theatre in November 2018 with monstrously high production cost of around $35 million. The brunt of this budget went on the 20-foot-tall, 2,000-pound gorilla marionette and animatronic, which needed 13 performers to control it.
However, while the eponymous Kong was much admired, the view from critics was that perhaps more budget should have been poured into plot and soundtrack. In a rare miss from Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, this adaptation lost the metaphor, gender politics and colonial themes the 1933 film had in spades, leaving a jumbled mishmash of a show whose only uniting factor was the big, over-priced ape.
2. The Notebook
The Notebook Musical launched at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in March 2024, and from the off, milked its status as a classic ‘tearjerker.’ It’s not often you see souvenir $5 tissue boxes going viral.
But the sad story of Noah and Allie got mixed reviews regarding the show’s overly “saccharine” and “mid-tempo” soundtrack, and critics found the musical packed with cliches the movie had somehow managed to style out – mainly through Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling’s chemistry. The musical moved the couple’s story from the 1940s to the ’60s and cast three separate mixed-race duos to play Noah and Allie.
However, critics were left frustrated, as many argued the effect of race on their story wasn’t looked at with enough depth, and overall their romance felt underwritten, despite the 2+ hour runtime. All this and a lack of Tony Award wins meant the musical suffered from diminishing box office returns, causing it to close in mid-December before heading off on a US tour.
3. Pretty Woman
Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s iconic ’90s film was dutifully adapted for stage in 2018, bringing to life the story of rich entrepreneur Edward, who hires a sex worker called Vivian to be his fake girlfriend for the week. Originally starring Les Misérables and Frozen actress Samantha Barks and featuring a score put together by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, the show ran for a full year at the Nederlander before going on multiple US and UK tours, some of which are still running today.
So, if this production was by no means a flop, why is it in this list? Well, because like the entire recent wave of romcom musicals with scores written by rock stars (Clueless by KT Tunstall, The Devil Wears Prada by Elton John, etc), it wasn’t anything original. All the plot beats and famous lines from the movie are delivered as a Julia Roberts 2.0, rather than anything new.
We see Edward snap down the jewellery box on Vivian’s hand knowing it was Richard Gere’s delightful improvisation that caused said moment, we watch Vivian’s makeover in musical form while wishing it was just a montage. In short, projects like this remind you so much of their source material, you simply wish you were watching that instead.
4. Groundhog Day
In an unfortunate bit of irony, Groundhog Day was doomed not to repeat itself on Broadway, despite being considered one of the most well-adapted shows of our time. In fact, many theatre fans now think of this show as ‘the one that got away,’ with an intensely clever score by Tim Minchin (writer of Matilda the Musical) and a stellar performance by Andy Karl as Phil Connors – who famously performed an entire performance with a torn ACL.
However, that enthusiasm never quite translated into ticket sales, which meant the show closed after just 176 regular performances.
5. Amélie
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s French romcom Amélie crossed over the water in 2017 with Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo at its helm. The story of a shy Parisian waitress who lives in her own imaginative world seemed like the perfect level of whimsy for a hit musical. However, the dream was far from reality in this case.
Critics described the plot as flat, the set design as “cartoonish” and the music as “insipid, with zero flavour of Paris”. Right from the off, this musical was named a dud – causing it to close after just 57 regular performances. The show then went under huge rework for a much-improved run at the West End in 2019.
6. The Lost Boys
The first musical on here to still be running, The Lost Boys opened in April 2026, despite the odds being stacked highly against it. First of all, producers Patrick Wilson, James Carpinello, and Marcus Chait had issues securing the stage rights from Warner Bros, and Broadway has a reputation for vampire flops, following 2002’s Dance of the Vampires (by Jim Steinman), 2004’s Dracula: The Musical (by Frank Wildhorn), and 2006’s Lestat (by Elton John).
However, like Joel Schumacher’s cult classic, the musical has been a surprise hit. Praised for its campy ’80s design and a decent score by indie rock band The Rescues, the show received a mix of three and four-star reviews from critics and earned itself four Tony Award wins. Yet, while the movie has an effortless vibe of gothic teen angst, the show has been accused of trying too hard, using lines like “Turning a movie into a musical reeks of desperation,” to let audiences know ‘don’t worry, we’re not like other musicals’.
7. Rocky
What’s the opposite of a knock-out success? Why, the Rocky musical. Sylvester Stallone’s beloved boxing flick hit The Great White Way in 2014 with no expense spared. Co-produced by Stallone himself, the roughly $20m production costs included a $4.3m full-size boxing ring, which slid out over the stalls, requiring those in the front rows to move around to bleachers at the back for the last 20 minutes.
Said set design won Rocky a Tony, but sadly no amount of elaborate visuals could account for what The Hollywood Reporter called a “serviceable Xerox of the movie”. A thin book and unmemorable songs meant Rocky’s sales weren’t great, at one point making just half of its weekly $1.2million revenue potential, and so it closed after 188 performances.
8. Young Frankenstein
Unlike other members on this list, the Young Frankenstein musical didn’t suffer from comparison to its source movie, but from comparison to its writer. Fresh off the success of his adaptation of The Producers, Mel Brooks marketed his next project as “The New Mel Brooks Musical: Young Frankenstein,” which arrived at the Lyric Theatre in 2007.
Under pressure like that, however, this show was never going to be a diamond and suffered almost immediately from the parallels, despite a cast that included Roger Bart as Frankenstein, Megan Mullally as Elizabeth, Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor and Sutton Foster as Inga.
9. Beaches
Beaches, A New Musical closed on 24 May 2026 after just over a month of regular performances – the show became the first casualty of this year’s Tony Awards after getting snubbed for nominations. It’s really a shame as, for all intents and purposes, Beaches should have worked. The 1985 Iris Rainer Dart novel and its 1988 film adaptation became a cultural touchstone for thousands of young women, with Wind Beneath My Wings in particular becoming an anthem of the age.
But it seems the critical consensus deemed this show another case of same old, same old: with a generic score, a weepy plot, heart-swelling group numbers, and an over-reliance on the familiarity of the source material. Sometimes the best tribute to a story can be to take it forward.
10. Ghost
Ghost the Musical proved to be a master of illusion, with its titular deceased Sam passing through walls and objects live on stage. This technical wizardry was enough to warm some critics’ cold hearts, but not enough to raise the general rating above a 3-star. The Swayze-Moore chemistry was lost to the ether, and the lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin were met with disappointment from many.
11. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Truman Capote’s story of the frivolous Holly Golightly and her obsession with Tiffany is undoubtedly an iconic member of the Hollywood film canon, though its musical adaptation was one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time.
Featuring music by Bob Merrill and starring Mary Tyler Moore as Holly and Richard Chamberlain as Paul Varjak, the show ran on Broadway in 1966 for just four previews. Producer David Merrick famously shut down the production rather than, in his own words, “subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening”.
12. Carrie
Of all the flops in Broadway history, Carrie is perhaps the most well-known. Stephen King’s novel and Brian De Palma’s movie was transfigured for the stage in and opened at the Virginia Theatre on 12 May 1988. It closed just three days later, with only five performances and 16 previews completed. Why? Well, as The New York Times put it: “As the film director Brian DePalma demonstrated in his screen adaptation, Carrie can make for scary, funny and sexy pulp entertainment – provided the thrills, wit and post-pubescent sensuality are as sharp as that knife. The musical Carrie fails in all these areas.”
The tone of Carrie the Musical was the real killer, mixing serious, operatic drama with campy elements and bubble-gum pop music. The opening song for Act Two, Out for Blood, became particularly notorious, as crazed teenagers ran across stage yelling “Kill the Pig, Pig, Pig” in preparation for the iconic prank performed on Carrie at prom. Despite reports that King himself enjoyed the show, the musical suffered from scathing reviews and alleged boos from audience members.
13. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Allow me to paint you a picture: the world’s most famous superhero coming to the stage in a new musical, a $75 million budget, The Lion King director Julie Taymor on board, and music by U2’s Bono and The Edge – what could go wrong? Well, alongside being the most expensive Broadway production in history, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was also the most dangerous.
In its efforts to become more gravity-defying than Wicked could ever imagine, the show included 40+ aerial stunts, which inevitably led to several injuries in the rehearsal process. One stuntman, Christopher Tierney, fell during a performance, suffering a skull fracture and cracked vertebrae, and Evan Rachel Wood, who was originally cast as Mary Jane Watson, left the project citing ‘scheduling difficulties’.
The show was originally slated to open in early 2010 but only officially made it to preview on 28 November. The issues then continued as, in one preview, the dramatic cliffhanger at the end of the first half ground to a halt when Reeve Carney, playing the superhero, was left swinging above the audience. It took stagehands almost a minute to catch him by the feet to drag him down.
The production was so fiddly that the preview period ended up lasting for a record-breaking 182 performances, finally opening on 14 January 2011. But, in a comic book twist not even Spidey Senses could predict, the show actually lasted at the Foxwoods Theatre for four years. It never did manage to accrue back its colossal costs, though.
For more recommendations check out the Theatre section or listen to our new podcast In the Interval. Plus, our Jesus Christ Superstar review and Beetlejuice review. We also have events like the best kids theatre shows and best West End shows.
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