“A bummer”: The musical Hugh Jackman regrets not starring in
Success on Broadway and in Hollywood have been two different avenues for Hugh Jackman in his career, as they have only occasionally intersected.
Despite being an A-list movie star and a legend of the stage, he hasn’t ever been able to fully show his musical talents on the big screen. It was so early on in his career that he landed the role of Wolverine in X-Men that he would forever be associated with the Marvel superhero, even when the films haven’t been as good.
The issue is that musicals simply don’t have the same drawing power for moviegoers as they did for previous generations. Although there are plenty of hits like Wonka and La La Land that breathe life into the genre, more often than not, there are disasters like Cats, Dear Evan Hansen, or Fame that just collapse, failing to entice those who don’t have an automatic interest in Broadway.
Jackman has certainly tried to bring back musicals, but with mixed success. While he did receive his first and only ‘Best Actor’ Academy Award nomination for Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, the film has developed a more negative reception than the glowing responses it received on initial release. Jackman’s performance isn’t the subject of too much criticism, but Hooper’s direction may have prevented the tome of a book from being an all-time classic.
Considering that the actor has the best voice out of any A-lister working in Hollywood today, he would seemingly be the first choice for any major musical adaptation that was in the works, and outside of Les Misérables, there is no more iconic musical in the last 50 years than The Phantom of the Opera, which was adapted into a 2004 film by Joel Schumacher.
Casting Jackman as the titular Phantom seemed like the most obvious decision, but he was forced to turn down the opportunity to audition because of a scheduling issue, about which he avoided disclosing any more information about his interest in the project, apart from noting that not getting to be in it was “a bummer”.
Schumacher’s screen adaptation is by no means a disaster, but it was still a bit disappointing considering how powerful the stage show is, and with all of the film’s issues, the most glaring was the casting of Gerard Butler in the title role. Butler is a much better dramatic actor than he is given credit for, and while he nailed the darker aspects of the character, he wasn’t quite able to sing with the same power that Jackman presumably would have been able to.
However, what’s most disappointing is what Jackman likely had to turn down The Phantom of the Opera for, as it was in between shooting instalments in the X-Men trilogy that he played the titular role in Van Helsing, a horror-action film that was released the same year as the musical, which seemed like it could be the start of an entirely new franchise that delved deep into the lore of the Universal monsters, but it ended up getting terrible reviews and flopping, preventing the actor from landing another recurring role.
The Phantom of the Opera is such a well-known and still popular Broadway show that it only seems inevitable that there will be another cinematic adaptation at one point, but the time may have passed in which Jackman could realistically be in it.
