8. If Thou Must (And Thou Art Careful), Thou Canst Make a Musical
Upon their original release, Little Shop of Horrors and The Producers were nothing to sneeze at. Original properties back in their day, they failed to set the world on fire, despite any artistic merit they may have had to their name. However, sometimes it just takes a little time for something to catch on with the viewing public. By time films like these became Cult Classics, they were reinterpreted successfully on the Broadway stage as musical properties, and became so popular that it seemed like a good idea to translate that success back into that of the celluloid variety. To successfully adapt a musical stage play into a theatrical film experience, you have to remember why it succeeded as a play in order to avoid the failure of the film. Catch songs are just the beginning, though you still need to put work into that original song you're writing for the movie's awards bid. This isn't the time to cheap out on that, and the proper expansion of the film's scope and vision. More effectively with Little Shop of Horrors, the filmmakers took the amazing finale to the Broadway version (recently restored to the film's Blu Ray release) and went full on 50's monster movie on it. Audrey II's smashed up buildings, terrorized innocent civilians, and even conquered the Empire State Building; all in ways that would be ridiculously expensive to recreate on the stage. While stage musical adaptations shouldn't forget where they came from, they also shouldn't forget where they're going and what an opportunity it is to show off stuff that the play's audiences could only dream of.