So, perhaps you’ve heard: “La La Land” didn’t win best picture at the Oscars.
But if every cloud has a silver lining, this one might be called golden: The Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling musical, which did win six Oscars, has been racking up box office numbers remarkable for a musical — nearly $417 million globally so far, according to comScore — and even more for an original one with no previously known songs or story. Damien Chazelle’s eye-popping, toe-tapping creation ranks third in all live-action film musicals, behind the 2008 “Mamma Mia!” and the 2012 “Les Miserables,” neither of them original.
“That’s big-time money,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “At times, the musical genre has been marginalized or not taken seriously. But this is serious business.”
It’s enough to make a musical fan break into sudden, joyful song — and as musical fans know, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that — perhaps on the way to the multiplex, where this weekend Emma Watson’s “Beauty and the Beast” is expected to have a huge, $120 million-style opening.