MOVIES : With a Song in Its Heart : Hollywood is attempting to revive a hallowed genre--the musical--but some wonder if it can survive the disappointing ‘Newsies’

When there’s music in the air in Hollywood, one of the first places you’ll hear it is Julie McDonald’s office at Joseph Heldfond & Rix talent agency. McDonald is one of only three Hollywood talent agents who exclusively represent dancers and choreographers, the movie industry’s most chronically underworked and underpaid contingent. That’s why there are only three dance agents: “Ten percent of what ?” McDonald says.

So when rumors of new musical film and TV production begin leaking from Hollywood executive suites, this lean and hungry group is the first to know. And there is definitely music--or more accurately, musicals --in the air at JHR.

Over the past few months, the Los Angeles dancers network hummed about Walt Disney Productions’ “Newsies,” a traditional musical about the New York City newsboys strike of 1899, as the movie neared its April 10 release. Now here was a dancer’s dream: The director was Kenny Ortega, who choreographed the hit movie “Dirty Dancing,” and whose work has generated heat in live tours (he staged and performed five international tours with the rock group Tubes), music videos and a host of other feature films.

And there were more movie musicals in the works: Modern dance choreographer Twyla Tharp has a top-secret, untitled new project for James L. Brooks; auditions took place in recent weeks, and the New York-based Tharp and her company will return to Los Angeles on Friday to begin workshops for the dancers. Brooks also reportedly is working on a musical to star Nick Nolte. Barry Levinson’s upcoming musical “Toys,” also shrouded in secrecy, stars Robin Williams as a toy-maker who tries to save his father’s business.

Riding high on the success of “Beauty and the Beast,” the first animated film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, Disney had more projects in the works, including the already completed “Swing Kids” (about teen-age rebels who danced to American swing music in Hitler-era Germany) and the animated “Aladdin,” as well as a not-yet-produced sequel to “Mary Poppins” and a musical version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s novel “The Little Princess.”

The Broadway-to-screen adaptation pipeline also bulged with new possibilities: Along with “Miss Saigon,” “Les Miserables,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Evita,” which went into development as early as 1990 at various studios, newer Broadway-connected films include “Sweeney Todd,” to be directed for Columbia by “Batman” director Tim Burton, and “Into the Woods,” to be produced for Columbia by Storyline Productions in association with Jim Henson Productions, which will design the creatures. Stephen Sondheim has also written a new movie musical, “Singing Out Loud,” for Castle Rock Entertainment, with a script by William Goldman, to be directed by Rob Reiner.

It seemed, as veteran theatrical, TV and film dancer-choreographer Grover Dale put it, that “every studio in town was poised for a musical.” Even television seemed to have caught the musical bug; news leaked in an April 8 Liz Smith column that CBS is in negotiations with Bette Midler’s All Girl Productions and Storyline Productions to produce a three-hour TV version of “Gypsy,” to star Midler.

After “Newsies” opened, the tune changed. The $25-million film grossed only $1.2 million in 1,223 theaters that weekend and a mere $1.1 million the following week. Disney executives who were eager to discuss the revival of the musical before “Newsies” opened offered a blanket “no comment” the Monday after.

And suddenly, at McDonald’s office, people began to talk about whether a cold reception for “Newsies” would put a chill on Hollywood’s latest musical boom before it ever hit the screen.

“We were talking about that this morning--God, I hope not,” McDonald said a few days after “Newsies” opened. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid it will. It’s a damn good movie. . . . I think the quality is on the screen, but for some reason people are not going into the theater. I guess people just haven’t seen a traditional musical in so long, it’s awkward.”

Storyline Productions’ Craig Zadan, who with partner Neil Meron is at work on the “Gypsy” project, predicted that a skittish Hollywood will take any box-office failure as a death knell for the musical.

The Hollywood musical seems to die quite often, Zadan noted. “Musicals are the only form that is punished for the failure of any particular one. When ‘A Chorus Line’ failed,” he said, referring to the 1985 movie version, “everyone said for a while that nobody wants to see musicals.”

Vincent Paterson, who created dance numbers for Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” as well as Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video and Madonna’s “Blond Ambition” tour, said studios treat the word musical itself as if carries a voodoo curse. “They don’t even know what to call a ‘movie musical’ anymore,” he said. “They are afraid of the format the old movie musicals used to take, yet they are afraid to call films such as ‘Mambo Kings’ or ‘For the Boys’ musicals. To me, they are musicals--it’s just a new perspective.”

Zadan believes that the apparent failure of “Newsies” may not end the musical trend, because it was not triggered by “Newsies” in the first place. “I think ‘The Little Mermaid’ may have kicked (the musical boom) into gear,” he said, referring to the Disney hit of 1989. “A lot of that development began around the time of ‘Little Mermaid.’ I think ‘Little Mermaid’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ helped enormously. They are animated, but they are musicals.”

Though unavailable for comment after “Newsies” struck out, Walt Disney Pictures Vice President David Vogel and Donald De Line, executive vice president of Touchstone Pictures, another arm of the Disney film conglomerate, both sang the praises of the musical before it opened. Vogel said the studio is discussing a number of projects, both musical and non-musical, with Ortega.

A source close to “Newsies” and the studio said the movie’s poor performance has not halted any musical projects in the works. “We just have to keep singing and dancing,” the source said.

“We plan to continue to develop this kind of project, and we hope everyone else does too,” said Vogel, an executive with the unusual background of having danced with several major New York modern and ballet companies before turning to the film business.

“We have said this over and over: ‘The musical is dead,’ ‘the Western is dead.’ I think nothing is dead when the movie delivers.”

Before “Newsies” opened, choreographer Ortega also dismissed the idea that “Newsies” would open or close the door for movie musicals. His own musical track record includes enormous successes like “Dirty Dancing” as well as such notable flops as “Salsa” and the short-lived 1990 TV series “Hull High.”

“At times, I’ve felt that the weight of the world was on my shoulders,” Ortega said. “I thought, ‘God, if this doesn’t work, it will limit opportunities for so many other people!’ But at other times, I think, ‘No--that’s what’s being thrown at me.’ I don’t think it’s about just this one project; I think it’s about whether or not we have an audience out there that wants to look at music and dance on a big screen, with Dolby surround sound. I believe that they do.”

Along with traditional “book musicals,” in which the music and lyrics are an integral part of the story, Touchstone’s De Line said, the studio is developing other “music-driven, performance-based” films. “Sister Act,” starring Whoopi Goldberg as a lounge singer on the run who seeks refuge in a convent and ends up transforming the choir into a hit-making “girl group,” will be released this summer. In development are “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” the story of Tina Turner’s life, directed by Mario Van Peebles; as well as two musical ideas from independent producer Dawn Steel and several Bette Midler vehicles.

Russell Clark, son of Steve Clark of the legendary tap-dancing team the Clark Brothers and choreographer of Steven Bochco’s ill-fated 1990 musical police series “Cop Rock,” as well as music videos and feature films, believes that Hollywood is ripe for a musical revival.

“Sociologically, we have the economic reason for a big dance boom,” Clark said. “Economically, we’re not at our best right now, and people need to escape. It’s time for that whole ‘40s reaction to the Depression to begin. Dance is very healing.

“MTV has whetted our appetite for movement, but producers are not really ready. That’s my signal to all the producers out there: Get up off it and give the people what they want.”

Otis Sallid, the choreographer on “Swing Kids,” takes a more pessimistic view of Hollywood’s musical attempts. “There is no trend--there’s nothing,” he said. “Studios are not really reaching out to people who know musicals. They still do weird things, like hire people from England to direct American musicals (referring to “Chorus Line’s” Richard Attenborough); they hire people who can’t dance to have big dance roles. It’s stupid.”

As the musical projects wait in the wings, Hollywood continues to debate the formula for a successful movie musical, and the question is whether America wants a revival of the old-fashioned musical--or something completely different. The slate of upcoming projects ranges from an apparent attempt to re-create the tried-and-true with a long list of Broadway adaptations, to daring stabs at musical innovation such as Levinson’s “Toys” and the Tharp-Brooks project.

“Toys,” for example, employed as its choreographer Anthony Thomas, the man responsible for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” tour; he calls both the story and the musical numbers definitely out of the ordinary. “It’s a comedy, it’s something I’ve never seen before, and it’s wild ,” he said.

And though its producers call the Tharp-Brooks project a traditional book musical, in her search for dancers, Tharp ventured into the worlds of aerobics and gymnastics rather than relying on veterans of musical theater, said one of its executive producers, Penney Finkelman Cox.

Libbe HaLevy, who with partner Kevin Kaufman presents a six-week musical-theater workshop in Studio City, believes that Hollywood must not depend on simply presenting old Broadway musicals, but must develop a workshop system within the studios to create brand-new musicals, using the tested methods of the craft. She believes that MTV-style dance movies such as “Footloose” or “Flashdance” should not represent Hollywood’s only musical contribution.

“If you go back to the glory days of MGM . . . they raided any kind of talent they could find in the theater,” HaLevy said. “The grabbed people off Broadway; they threw them together with scriptwriters. . . . Dance and music were used to convey emotions. It’s not about looking at all those aerobicized bodies moving around at a frantic pace. If you’re not conveying an emotional moment, there is no reason to sing and dance.”

HaLevy said Hollywood could save itself a lot of money by testing musical scenes in live performance before spending $25 million to create a film like “Newsies.” “If they want to get successful musicals, they have to start by thinking small--but that may be heresy in this town,” she said.

Although Disney’s Vogel said, “I think that the revival of interest in the musical comes out of the incredible success of MTV,” others says the example set by music videos isn’t the direction new Hollywood musicals should follow.

International Creative Management Vice President Jack Gilardi, who packaged the beach party movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s and was once married to Annette Funicello, says feature-film musicals should avoid becoming too intertwined with music video and pop music stars.

“My opinion could be dead wrong, but I think that the kind of music that the young people are listening to today, whether it’s MTV or whatever, is not conducive to motion pictures, the kind of movies that were made years ago,” he said. “Young people are fickle in the sense of their music--there is a new artist every week. It’s not like when we had Streisand, or Sinatra, or Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly. The artists do not survive--although Madonna seems to be holding up.”

Commercial director Joe Pytka, who directed Ray Charles’ recent Diet Pepsi commercial “Mr. Charles Goes to Washington” and Madonna’s Pepsi spot “Make a Wish,” among others, said he hopes filmmakers are developing a new respect for musical production numbers. “MTV is mostly a distraction,” Pytka said. “But I’m dying to see a Hollywood musical with beautiful dance.”

Pytka complained that the movie “Flashdance”--which starred non-dancer Jennifer Beals--led to a general acceptance of wholesale cutting and pasting. “They had gymnasts and dancers and a star that couldn’t dance all in the same scene,” he said. “Nothing registered. With Fred Astaire, they used a wide lens; you could see everything.”

But some industry observers caution that MTV has changed the perception of music and dance on screen forever. Jonathan Siegel, a music video director and editor whose credits include rapper Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” said a new Hollywood musical, even one as traditional as “Newsies,” has to have “an edge” in order to appeal to young audiences. “It’s gotta be hot ,” he said.

Ortega and “Newsies” choreographer Peggy Holmes said “Newsies” represented a unique challenge in trying to blend the old with the new. It was street dancing, circa 1899. Holmes joked that it was sometimes difficult to get the young men in the film to “stand like Newsies--not like homeboys.”

“What we found is that there was a connection--there was sort of a blending of folk culture with the sort of contemporary style of today,” Ortega said. “(We decided): ‘Let’s not take the period too seriously. Let’s have some fun with it.’ But we didn’t want this to become a hip-hop movie, either.” And as a result of MTV’s influence, dancers of all races are part of the picture--even in a period piece like “Newsies,” Ortega said. “Right off the bat, (Disney Chairman) Jeffrey Katzenberg said: ‘Even though it’s a turn-of-the-century piece, Kenny, do your very, very best to up the ante on minorities,” Ortega said. “That’s a giant step forward compared to 15 years ago here.”

Although members of the movie industry in part credit MTV for renewing interest in the movie musical, surprisingly, it hasn’t done the same for network TV.

With the exception of the proposed “Gypsy” and the street-dancing Fly Girls from Fox Broadcasting’s “In Living Color,” there is virtually no musical energy on network TV. The musical-variety show has not been successfully revived in years, and the musical series “Fame” was canceled in 1983, although it lives on in syndication.

One producer said the death of “Cop Rock” stopped the music for a while. Although the show still has some die-hard fans (musical theater’s HaLevy is one of them), this producer believes that “Cop Rock” was doomed from the start. “No one wants to say this publicly because they don’t want to alienate (producer) Steven Bochco, but ‘Cop Rock’ just wasn’t good,” he said. “It was Broadway musical numbers mixed with a realistic police drama. Talk about oil and water!”

And some say MTV hurt more than it helped.

“It’s very difficult to pull together music and rehearse a musical number that you can do live on a TV show that can do battle with the $175,000, three-minute music video that takes three days to shoot,” said Toni Basil, an actress, dancer and recording artist. Variety series are more expensive than dramas, Basil added.

Basil, who choreographed for 1988’s “New Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” said that before the introduction of Fox’s Fly Girls in 1990, network TV was unreceptive to street dancing and rap music. “The Smothers Brothers’ band wasn’t the kind of music I wanted to use,” she said. “You can’t go back to that, to what the style of music was when they were first on the air. The suits at the network can’t figure that out.”

One choreographer determined to buck the trend is Anita Mann, who danced on the 1964-66 TV dance extravaganza “Shindig” and the 1965-66 “Hullabaloo” and now has her own company, the Anita Mann Dancers. In her last TV effort, she served for five years as choreographer on “Solid Gold,” which ran from 1980 to 1989.

“It has taken a nose dive, and it’s going to be a long time until we can revive it,” Mann said of variety television. “We kind of did it to ourselves; we can’t blame anybody. . . . You can’t go back to the old, old variety shows. When ‘Solid Gold’ went off the air, I tried to put musical shows on, and the networks wouldn’t even listen to my pitches.”

After several years of choreographing live shows, Mann is pitching an idea for a musical show to Adam Productions. Adam Productions partner Bob Myman says he’s interested--but wants to develop the idea into a TV movie rather than a series. “In the current climate, to try to mount a big production number every week would be too ambitious,” he said.

Maybe the answer is adapting the Broadway musical to TV instead of feature film. It’s worth a shot, said Bonnie Bruckheimer, partner with Bette Midler in All Girl Productions. Bruckheimer has never produced a television movie before.

“It (“Gypsy”) has been done as a feature film once, and this is an avenue that hasn’t been explored, making it into a big special for television,” she said. “We think it’s the right time--and the right place.”