THE sea of red ink engulfing “Shrek: The Musical” is ex panding at an alarming rate. Since Labor Day, this overproduced, underima gined cartoon musical at the Broadway Theatre has lost more than $1 million, production sources say.
And there’s little hope for a turnaround.
Despite heavy discounts and an aggressive ad campaign, “the numbers just don’t move much,” one person says.
Fall’s been strong on Broadway, with several shows posting weekly grosses of more than $1 million. But at “Shrek,” that number is stubbornly stuck at about $500,000, nearly $300,000 short of the show’s weekly running cost.
You don’t have to work for H&R Block to figure out what this means: “Shrek” should close at the end of the year.
That rumor is, in fact, all over town this week. But DreamWorks, the show’s deep-pocketed producer, seems hellbent on keeping its flagship show going for a while.
“They are a tenacious group,” says an insider. “You have to give them that.”
The general sense on Broadway is that it’s an ego thing.
“Shrek” was DreamWorks’ attempt to take on Disney, which conquered Broadway with “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”
If DreamWorks closes “Shrek” — on which it’s spent something like $25 million — after only a year or so, that is a dramatic admission of defeat.
And that’s something Jeffrey Katzenberg, who helped create DreamWorks in 1994 after leaving Disney on bad terms, is loath to do.
Although he’s kept a low profile on Broadway, Katzenberg has been deeply involved in “Shrek,” sources say, from the direction and design to the marketing and advertising.
He could, of course, keep the show going forever. The “Shrek” movie franchise has earned a few billion dollars, so what’s $25 million or $30 million squandered on a bad Broadway show?
DreamWorks can always justify it by saying that the musical is just one big advertisement for all things “Shrek.”
But a loser show that hangs around past its sell-by date clogs up the works. At least half a dozen musicals — some good ones, in fact — are circling Times Square, looking for a theater in the spring.
Indeed, the producers of “Promises, Promises,” which will star Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes, are practically measuring the wing space over at the Broadway Theatre — and not, as I mistakenly reported
last week, the St. James.
Other shows seeking theaters include Green Day’s “American Idiot,” Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman‘s “Catch Me If You Can” and Twyla Tharp‘s “Come Fly With Me.”
Broadway needs these new musicals to stay vital and exciting.
It’s time for “Shrek” to hit the road.
SOMETHING called Broad wayspace.com yesterday released a list of the 50 most powerful people in the theater.
Most of the people on that list have never heard of Broadwayspace.com — but they were all checking it out.
Not surprisingly, theater owners are at the top of the heap, with Shubert chief Phil Smith at No. 1 and James Nederlander at No. 2.
Jordan Roth, who just acquired half of Jujamcyn, is No. 6.
At No. 44 is Rocco Landesman, who ran Jujamcyn before becoming the head of the National Endowment for the Arts. That’s about right. The NEA is a minor government agency whose sole purpose (as far as the theater is concerned) is to give the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to boring old nonprofits so they can do boring old revivals.
One person not on the list is Paul Libin, vice president of Jujamcyn. He ran the place for Landesman and will now play Cardinal Richelieu to Roth’s young Louis XIII.
Yours truly clocks in at No. 37, largely because I do “damage on a regular basis.”
I’d like to be higher up, so I’m going to have to do even more damage this season.
Please come to Broadway, “Spider-Man”!