SO far, the movie version of “Rent” has grossed only about $18 million.
But last week, the stage version pulled in $750,000, the biggest seven-day take in the show’s nine-year history.
“Rent” fans, it seems, are taking a pass on the movie (which opened to lukewarm reviews), but they’re going back to see the show.
“We’re getting a lot of repeat business,” says Allan S. Gordon, one of the show’s producers.
The same thing happened last year with “The Phantom of the Opera.” The movie, which cost about $100 million to make, grossed just $150 million worldwide.
But it lifted the fortunes of the Broadway show.
Before the movie was released, there were persistent rumors that the “Phantom” was going to close at the Majestic Theatre to make way for “Mary Poppins.”
But since the movie came out, “We’ve been on solid ground ever since,” says “Phantom” spokesman Michael Borowski.
Last week alone, “Phantom” grossed almost $1 million.
In January, it will overtake “Cats” as the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
As more and more stage shows are being adapted for the silver screen, theater producers are discovering that even if the movie isn’t very good, the stage production benefits.
The spike in ticket sales registers as soon as the trailer for the movie starts playing in theaters.
Box-office receipts for Broadway’s “Rent,” Gordon says, increased 20 to 30 percent “the second the trailer hit.”
Borowski says the same thing happened at “Phantom.” Print and television commercials for the movie, he adds, also paid big dividends for the stage production.
“We concluded that since the ads for the movie, like the ads for the musical, used the same logo – the Phantom mask – they brought people back to the show,” he says.
The impressive gains last week for the stage versions of “Rent” and “Phantom” were part of an industry-wide flurry of strong ticket sales.
In fact, this last Thanksgiving week was the highest grossing in Broadway history, with total box-office receipts hitting almost $21 million, according to the League of American Theaters and Producers.
That’s a 20 percent increase over last year’s figure – thanks, in part, to escalating ticket prices, ranging up to $350 for “premium” seats to such hits as “Spamalot,” “The Odd Couple” and “Wicked.”
House records were broken all over the street, with “Wicked” taking in $1.5 million; “Jersey Boys” $800,000, and “Mamma Mia!” $1 million.
There were a few stragglers, most notably the lemon musical “In My Life,” which grossed a pathetic $125,000.
It seems that producer Fred Whittemore and creator Joe Brooks have made a strategic error:
Instead of pumping $2 million into an ad campaign, they should have made a movie.
Or, at the very least, a trailer.
LOOKS like Britney Spears won’t be making her Broadway debut in “Sweet Charity.”
Production sources say Mr. Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, pressured his wife to decline an offer to replace Christina Applegate in the musical after the first of the year. “The deadbeat husband wants her to stay out in L.A.,” says a source.
michael.riedel@nypost.com
