Sometimes studios must face the fact that musical/Broadway adaptations sometimes just don't perform. Take for instance Rent and The Producers. Each production did amazing while on stage but then flopped when shown on the bigscreen.
We figured that after these two misses the studios would begin to cut their budgets on the genre. The budgets go up with successful films such as Moulin Rouge and Chicago and right back down when it looks like the market has wilted.
However, in the case of Dreamgirls, Dreamworks marketing machine has come out swinging. We first had a teaser trailer a few weeks back and now we have the first featurette for the film; all almost a year before the film's release!
Dreamgirls Featurette
The featurette for Dreamgirls offers interviews with Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson (Effie White). Never heard of Jennifer Hudson? Well, better check your American Idol re-runs as she was once a contestant on the show. Talk about still being a winner!
Based on the Tony Award-winning musical, Dreamgirls, set in the turbulent late 1960s and early '70s, follows the rise of a trio of women -- Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) -- who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime: to become the back-up singers for headliner James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy). Curtis gradually takes control of the girls' look and sound, eventually giving them their own shot in the spotlight as The Dreams. That spotlight, however, begins to narrow in on Deena, finally pushing the less attractive Effie out altogether. Though the Dreams become a cross-over phenomenon, they soon realize that the cost of fame and fortune may be higher than they ever imagined.
Watch the new featurette for Dreamgirls in Quicktime.
Dreamgirls will be released some time in December, 2006.
Add to Heffee!
