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Abstract
This article analyses Hollywood’s synergies with the music industry, as well as the cultural and economic relationship between US and UK contemporary media industries. I focus on two films that were released along with soundtrack albums – Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall, 2018) and 21st Century Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, Dexter Fletcher 2019) – in order to interrogate their participation in what John Caldwell calls the ‘para-industry’: the ubiquitous corporate fields that surround the primary media object. By analysing Fox and Disney’s reflexive filmmaking and marketing strategies, I demonstrate how the studios control their films’ reception by mythologizing the industrial processes that enabled their production. I argue that Mary Poppins Returns and Bohemian Rhapsody are the fruit of a number of synergies between Hollywood, the UK film industry, and the music industry that are motivated by the current political, economic, and technological climate, and I demonstrate how Disney and Fox mythologize historical events and texts that were important for fundamentally changing the industry’s relationship to music, such as the original Mary Poppins, the Live Aid concert of 1985, and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ the song.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Dirk Libbey, ‘Disney’s Box Office Hit A Record $10 Billion in 2019, and That’s Before Star Wars’, Cinema Blend, 9 December 2019, https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2486352/disneys-box-office-hit-a-record-10-billion-in-2019-and-thats-before-star-wars (accessed 22 July 2021).
2 ‘Walt Disney Revenues: How Does Disney Make Money?’ Trefis, 2020, https://dashboards.trefis.com/no-login-required/aLYpgkEL/Walt-Disney-Revenues-How-Does-Disney-Make-Money-?fromforbesandarticle=dis191008 (accessed 22 July 2021).
3 Bryan Alexander, ‘“Mary Poppins Returns” Has Flown from Theaters, Facing an Uncertain Future in Movie History’, USA Today, 13 March 2019 https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2019/03/13/mary-poppins-returns-faces-uncertain-movie-history/3145432002/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
4 J.T. Caldwell, Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television (London: Duke University Press, 2008).
5 Thomas Elsaesser, The Persistence of Hollywood (New York: Routledge, 2012).
6 J. T. Caldwell, ‘Para-Industry: Researching Hollywood's Blackwaters’, Cinema Journal 52 (2013): 157–65.
7 Alistair Foster, ‘London is the New Hollywood, Says Emily; Actress Praises UK Crews and Studios as Film Festival Opens’, The London Evening Standard, March 2014, 8.
8 Bohemian Rhapsody Company Credits. (n.d.). Imdb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727824/companycredits (accessed 6 April 2021); Mary Poppins Returns Company Credits. (n.d.). Imdb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5028340/companycredits (accessed 6 April 2021).
9 Steve Chibnall, ‘Hollywood on Thames: The British Productions of Warner Bros.-First National, 1931–1945’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 39 (2019): 688.
10 Kristin Thompson, Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market 1907–1934 (London: The British Film Institute), 3.
11 Daniel Steinhart, Runaway Hollywood: Internationalizing Postwar Production ad Location Shooting (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 77.
12 Agelos Delis and Christos Ioannidis, ‘Brexit: https://theconversation.com/brexit-uk-pound-has-not-crashed-yet-but-heres-why-it-will-probably-suffer-in-years-to-come-152646 (accessed 22 July 2021).
13 Katie Allen, Jill Treanor and Simon Goodley, ‘Pound Slumps to 31-Year Low FOLLOWING BREXIT VOTE’, The Guardian, 24 June 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/23/british-pound-given-boost-by-projected-remain-win-in-eu-referendum (accessed 22 July 2021).
14 Alex Ritman, ‘Britain’s Brexit Boom: ‘Grab It While You Can’, Hollywood Reporter, 14 February 2019, 81–2.
15 Orlando Parfitt, ‘Film Summit: Brexit Presents Opportunities, Say UK Film Financiers’, Screen Daily, November 2016, https://www.screendaily.com/news/film-summit-brexit-presents-opportunities-say-uk-film-financiers/5111665.article (accessed 22 July 2021).
16 Geoffrey Macnab, ‘Brexit: What Are the Ramifications for the Film Industry?’ Screen Daily, August 2016, https://www.screendaily.com/features/brexit-what-are-the-ramifications-for-the-film-industry/5108788.article (accessed 22 July 2021).
17 Tom Grater, ‘Five Big Questions Facing the UK Film Industry in 2019’, Screen Daily, January 2019, https://www.screendaily.com/features/five-big-questions-facing-the-uk-film-industry-in-2019/5135448.article (accessed 22 July 2021).
18 As Julie Turnock demonstrates, however, the standard story that sees George Lucas as revitalizing the post-production industry following the breakdown of the studio system (by hiring young and untried up and comers to work on the first Star Wars) wilfully ignores the large amount of special effects being conducted by independent Hollywood companies in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as its synergies with the robust UK post-production industry. Julie Turnock, ‘Before Industrial Light and Magic: The Independent Special Effects Business, 1968–75’, New Review of Film and Television Studies 7 (2009): 133–56.
19 Stephanie Baker, ‘Why Hollywood Makes Digital Magic in the UK’, Bloomberg Businessweek, 24 September 2016.
20 Ibid.
21 Hannah Ellis-Petersen, ‘Industrial Light and Magic Opens UK Studio to Work on New Star Wars Trilogy’, The Guardian, 16 October 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/15/industrial-light-magic-uk-studio-star-wars-film (accessed 22 July 2021).
22 ‘The UK’s VFX Industry: In Profile’, ukscreenalliance.co.uk, 2021, https://www.ukscreenalliance.co.uk/subpages/the-uks-vfx-industry-in-profile/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
23 Katherine Quanz, “Pinewood’s Fiddler Fans Goldwyn’s Folly: London’s Battle for Postproduction Sound Business,” in Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack, ed. James Buhler and Hannah Lewis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020).
24 See Jeff Smith’s detailed study of the marketing of popular film music through the twentieth century. Jeff Smith, The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). In a 2010 article, Smith identifies these lasting motivations in the contemporary period. See Jeff Smith, ‘”The Tunes They Are A-changing”: Moments of Historical Rupture and Reconfiguration in the Production and Commerce of Music in Film’, in The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies, ed. David Neumeyer, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 270–91.
25 Frank Pollotta, ‘”Bohemian Rhapsody” is About to Introduce Queen’s Music to the Spotify Generation’, CNN Business, November 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/media/bohemian-rhapsody-box-office-analysis/index.html (accessed 22 July 2021).
26 Ibid.
27 Keith Caulfield, ‘Poppins Perks Up in Movie Music’s Big Week’, Billboard, January 2019, 65–6.
28 Ibid.
29 Catherine Olson, ‘Disney at 50’, Billboard, November 2006, 39–40.
30 Cited in Doobie Moseley, ‘The Fascinating Connection between Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody and Disney’, Laughing Place, 7 November 2018, https://www.laughingplace.com/w/blogs/disney-buzz/2018/11/07/the-fascinating-connection-between-queen-bohemian-rhapsody-and-disney/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
31 Emily VanDerWerff, ‘Here’s What Disney Owns after the Massive Disney/Fox Merger’, Vox, 20 March 2019, https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/20/18273477/disney-fox-merger-deal-details-marvel-x-men (accessed 22 July 2021).
32 Rebecca Rubin, ‘With “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Fox Proves Its Value to Disney’, Variety, 5 November 2018, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/bohemian-rhapsody-disney-fox-merger-box-office-1203019450/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
33 Ibid.
34 Caldwell, Production Culture.
35 Ibid, 307.
36 Elsaesser, The Persistence of Hollywood, 278–9.
37 Ibid, 280.
38 Caldwell, Production Culture, 255.
39 Elsaesser, The Persistence of Hollywood, 279.
40 Caldwell, Production Culture.
41 For an overview of perspectives on the classical Hollywood system’s textual ambiguity, see Thomas Elsaesser, ‘Film as System: Notes on Close Textual Analysis, or: How to Learn to Step through an Open Door’, in The Persistence of Hollywood (New York: Routledge, 2012). For contemporary perspectives that argue for a “double register of knowingness,”, see Noël Carroll, The future of allusion: Hollywood in the seventies (and beyond), October, 20 (1982): 51–81; Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (London: Arnold, 2002).
42 Kayleigh Roberts, ‘What the ‘Mary Poppins’ Sequel Cast Looks Like Next to Their Original Counterparts,’Cosmopolitan, 4 December 2018, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/g25388054/mary-poppins-returns-cast-vs-original/?slide=9 (accessed 22 July 2021).
43 Ani Bundel, ‘Meryl Streep’s ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ Character Was A Wonderful Surprise to Fans’, Elite Daily, 20 December 2018, https://www.elitedaily.com/p/meryl-streeps-mary-poppins-returns-character-was-a-wonderful-surprise-to-fans-15550535 (accessed 22 July 2021).
44 Benjamin Svetkey, ‘Making of Mary Poppins Returns’, Hollywood Reporter, 7 December 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/mary-poppins-returns-how-rob-marshall-brought-it-big-screen-1166094 (accessed 22 July 2021).
45 Phil Gallo, ‘GRAMMYs Hall of Fame: The Stories Behind 2014’s Inductees’, Billboard, 17 January 2014, https://www.billboard.com/articles/events/grammys-2014/5876794/grammys-hall-of-fame-stories-behind-2014-inductees (accessed 22 July 2021).
46 ‘Press Release: Mary Poppins Returns’, HomeTheaterForum.com, 20 February 2019, https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/bvhe-press-release-mary-poppins-returns-4k-uhd-blu-ray.360928/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
47 Kelly Marcel, ‘”Saving Mr. Banks” Screenwriter Finds Purpose in the Tale’, Los Angeles Times, 23 December 2013, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-xpm-2013-dec-23-la-et-mn-writing-saving-mr-banks-story.html (accessed 22 July 2021).
48 Margaret Lyons, ‘Saving Mr. Banks Left out an Awful Lot About P.L. Travers’, Vulture, 23 December 2013, https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/saving-mr-banks-pl-travers-fact-check-mary-poppins.html (accessed 22 July 2021).
49 Svetkey, ‘Making of Mary Poppins Returns.’
50 Negative reviews that saw the film as too derivative of the original and manufactured included: David Ehrlich, ‘”Mary Poppins Returns” Review: A Sweet But Imaginatively Bankrupt Sequel’, Indiewire, 12 December 2018, https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/mary-poppins-returns-review-emily-blunt-lin-manuel-miranda-1202027350/ (accessed 22 July 2021); Michael O’Sullivan, ‘”Mary Poppins Returns” Desperately Wants to Be Liked, and the Result is Pretty Much Joyless’, The Washington Post, 14 December 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/mary-poppins-returns-desperately-wants-to-be-liked-and-the-result-is-pretty-much-joyless/2018/12/14/4fecc832-fe5d-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html (accessed 22 July 2021); Manohla Dargis, ‘”Mary Poppins Returns’ Review: A Truck Full of Sugar Can’t Make this Uplift Go Down’, The New York Times, 18 December 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/movies/mary-poppins-returns-review.html (accessed 22 July 2021); Joe Morgenstern, ‘”Mary Poppins Returns” Review: Hard Medicine to Swallow’, The Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-poppins-returns-review-hard-medicine-to-swallow-11545337772 (accessed 22 July 2021).
51 Charles Bramesco, ‘A Spoonful of Nostalgia Helps the Calculated Mary Poppins Returns Go Down’, AV club, 12 December 2018, https://www.avclub.com/a-spoonful-of-nostalgia-helps-the-calculated-mary-poppi-1831031216 (accessed 22 July 2021).
52 For example, Emily Blunt’s performance reminded Anthony Lane of classical Hollywood era actresses, like Veronica Lake, Carol Lombard, and Lauren Bacall; The songs took Paul McGuire Grimes back to MGM’s musicals; Leonard Maltin, like many others, referenced “all the contributors of the film” who “clearly cared about this precious property and treated it with utmost reverence;” Owen Gleiberman saw a positive message for the future in the way the film ‘uncannily recreates the original’s wholesome studio-system vibe.’ Anthony Lane, ‘”Mary Poppins Returns’ – With A Spoonful Less Sugars’, The New Yorker, 24 and 31 December, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/mary-poppins-returns-with-a-spoonful-less-sugar (accessed 22 July 2021); Paul McGuire Grimes, ‘Mary Poppins Returns’, Twin Cities Live, 29 March 2019, https://www.twincitieslive.com/fun/3447/3-29-movie-trip/ (accessed 22 July 2021); Leonard Maltin, ‘“Mary Poppins Returns:” Good But Less Than Practically Perfect’, leonardmaltin.com, 19 December 2018, https://leonardmaltin.com/mary-poppins-good-but-less-than-practically-perfect/ (accessed 22 July 2021); Owen Gleiberman, ‘“Mary Poppins Returns’,” Variety, 12 December 2018, https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/mary-poppins-returns-review-emily-blunt-1203085530/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
53 Ibid.
54 Social News XYZ, ‘Mary Poppins Returns World Premiere Cast & Crew Soundbites’, YouTube, 30 November 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re-qtZ35MN4&t=191s (accessed 22 July 2021).
55 Svetkey, ‘Making of Mary Poppins Returns.’
56 Ibid.
57 Bryan Alexander, ‘How 91-year-old Dick Van Dyke danced madly on that desk in “Mary Poppins Returns,”’ USA Today, 21 December 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/12/21/dick-van-dyke-angela-lansbury-cameo-mary-poppins-returns/2371100002/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
58 Marc Snetiker, ‘All the Stories Behind Dick Van Dyke’s Emotional Mary Poppins Returns Cameo’, Entertainment, 20 December 2018, https://ew.com/movies/2018/12/20/dick-van-dyke-mary-poppins-returns/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
59 K.J. Donnelly, Pop Music in British Cinema (London: BFI, 2001), 104.
60 David Giles, Media Psychology (London: Routledge, 2003), 79.
61 See Spencer Kornhaber, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born, and the Myth of Authenticity’, The Atlantic, 8 January 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/bohemian-rhapsody-a-star-is-born-golden-globes-reality-fantasy/579604/ (accessed 22 July 2021); Owen Gleiberman, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Variety, 23 October 2018, https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/bohemian-rhapsody-review-rami-malek-freddie-mercury-queen-1202989409/ (accessed 22 July 2021); Sheri Linden, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 October 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/bohemian-rhapsody-review-1150772 (accessed 22 July 2021).
62 Dirk Libbey, ‘Rami Malek Insisted Bohemian Rhapsody’s Live Aid Scene be Shot in One Take’, Cinema Blend, 8 January 2019, https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2462627/rami-malek-insisted-bohemian-rhapsodys-live-aid-scene-be-shot-in-one-take (accessed 22 July 2021).
63 Martin Kielty, ‘Queen Engineer Calls “Bohemian Rhapsody” Live Aid Scene a Miracle’, Ultimate Classic Rock, 26 February 2019, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/queen-sound-engineer-bohemian-rhapsody-live-aid-scene/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
64 Steven Weintraub, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody cast on Filming the Live Aid Concert’, Collider, 2 November 2018, https://collider.com/bohemian-rhapsody-cast-interview/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
65 Kory Grow, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Sing-Alongs to Hit 750 Theaters’, Rolling Stone, 10 January 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bohemian-rhapsody-sing-alongs-to-hit-movie-777528/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
66 Cited in Frank Pollotta, ‘’Bohemian Rhapsody’ is About to Introduce Queen’s Music to the Spotify Generation’, CNN Business, 2 November 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/media/bohemian-rhapsody-box-office-analysis/index.html (accessed 22 July 2021).
67 Ibid.
68 Reviews that viewed the scene negatively included Sheila O’Malley, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Roger Ebert.com, 2 November 2018 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bohemian-rhapsody-2018 (accessed 22 July 2021); Clarisse Loughrey, ‘This Karaoke-Style Paen is All Style, No Soul’, Independent, 24 October 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bohemian-rhapsody-review-rami-malek-release-date-queen-film-soundtrack-a8598776.html (accessed 22 July 2021).For reviews praising the scene, Glieberman, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody;’ Richard Brody, In “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Freddie Mercury is More Interesting Than his Music,” The New Yorker, 5 November 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-in-bohemian-rhapsody-freddie-mercury-is-more-interesting-than-his-music (accessed 22 July 2021).
69 Brody, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’
70 Kim Masters, ‘”How Many At-Bats Do You Get?” Why Fox Hired (Then Fired) Bryan Singer on “Bohemian Rhapsody,”’ The Hollywood Reporter, 31 October 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-fox-hired-fired-bryan-singer-bohemian-rhapsody-1156527 (accessed 22 July 2021); Dawn C. Chmielewski and Dominic Patten, ‘Sex, Drugs, Glamour, Emptiness: Bryan Singer’s Teen Ex-Lover Bares All About Life in Director’s Orbit’, Deadline, 8 December 2017, https://deadline.com/2017/12/bryan-singer-teen-ex-lover-hollywood-sex-drugs-party-life-1202216936/ (accessed 22 July 2021).
71 Masters, ‘”How Many At-Bats Do You Get?”’
72 Brody, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’
73 David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, KristinThompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985), 2.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Thomas Brami
Thomas Brami is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is currently researching location shooting in Australia and the cinematic landscape. He has an article on the integrated soundtrack and genre in Sound, Music, and the Moving Image, and an article on the relationship between tax law, politics, and archives in The Moving Image. His creative writing is published in Southerly, Of-With, Futures Trading, and Otoliths.