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By, Jacob Krueger

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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Is Your Idea Commercial?

This week, we’re going to be looking at Beauty and the Beast.

It could be argued that a virtually shot-for-shot live action remake of an animated film that premiered in 1991 is an odd choice for a screenwriting podcast. Why not just talk about the original, brilliant script by Linda Woolverton that made this movie worth watching in the first place 26 years ago?

But with a record breaking 170 million dollar opening weekend, make no mistake, Beauty and the Beast is going to shape the future of big budget Hollywood movies. And that means it has  a lot to teach us.

On the one hand, there’s some cause for concern. The Hollywood trend over the last few years of remaking old movies, rather than investing in new ones, has been troubling, not only for studio writers, but also for many producers, who have watched a great migration of top Hollywood writers into Independent Film, Self Production, and of course TV, where they have more opportunities to be challenged artistically, work creatively and develop original material.

But recently, we’re starting to see a shift with original movies like Get Out, La La Land, Manchester By The Sea, Moonlight and Arrival not only winning awards, but also hugely exceeding box office expectations. We’re also starting to see a trickle up effect, as companies like Amazon and Netflix have started entering the feature film market-- reinvigorating both writers and producers for the potential of a renaissance in feature films that can mirror the one in TV.

Which is why Beauty and the Beast’s success scared the crap out of so many big budget writers and producers, especially on the cusp of what seemed like a potential tipping point in the Hollywood model.

But though this may mean we’ll have to endure live action remakes of everything from Bambi to The Lion King over the next few years, I actually think the tremendous success of film musicals like Beauty and the Beast and La La Land suggests another step in the exciting disruption we’ve been seeing of the traditional Hollywood business model. And that’s exciting news if you’re a screenwriter.

Back when I was coming up in the industry, selling a musical was darn near impossible. I developed one with Robbie Fox, writer of So I Married An Axe Murderer, but even the powerful production company I was working for couldn’t get any investment. I wrote another with Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, writers of Broadway’s Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, which at one point had some even more famous directing and producing attachments. It seemed an inch from production before it all fell apart. I even wrote one with four-time Academy Award Winner Michel Legrand. Yup, same story.

These projects didn’t fall apart because they weren’t great stories, or because they didn’t have great writers behind them. Everybody loved these projects.

They fell apart because it was common knowledge in the industry that film musicals just “don’t make money.” Because “adult audiences just aren’t into film musicals anymore.”

You see where I’m going with this. It starts with 170 million dollars over one weekend.

Does that mean you should run out and write a film musical right now? Not necessarily.

Film musicals like La La Land and Beauty and the Beast succeed because of the love these writers have for the material. Not because they’re out there chasing the next Hollywood trend.

What it does mean is that if anyone ever tells you what’s commercial or not commercial, or if anyone ever tells you that your idea is commercial or not comme...