Stage musicals often make more money than the movie versions in terms of box office gross earnings, which include only ticket sales for showings and do not include rentals or sales of recordings. Stage musicals tend to have built-in audiences, less competition and higher ticket prices, and they can run for much longer periods of time. It is estimated that less than 30% of stage musicals make a profit, but the ones that do succeed typically bring in higher gross profits than movies. For example, the Disney movie “The Lion King” made more than $950 million US Dollars (USD) at the box office and is the second highest-grossing animated film of all time, but stage productions of “The Lion King” have grossed more than $5 billion USD worldwide.
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Non-musical movies often are unsuccessful if they are turned into stage musicals. For example, the 1976 horror movie “Carrie” grossed an estimated $33 million USD at the box office, but its stage musical version made just $341,000 USD and is often considered one of the biggest flops of all time.
The most successful non-animated movie musical of all time is the 2012 version of “Les Miserables,” which surpassed “Grease” for the title and had grossed more than $437 million worldwide by mid-2013.
The average Broadway show costs about $10 million USD to make, while the average Hollywood film costs more than $100 million USD, including production, distribution and marketing costs.