I'm just amazed at how the reputation of Newsies has changed so drastically over 17 years. When it was released back in' 92, people considered one of the worst movies of all time. But now, it's got this amazing cult following of fans who just absolutely adore this movie and now, it has a loyal fanbase. A loyal fanbase I'm proud to be a member of :) Anyone else feel the same way?
Don't forget your second wind.
I'm sure if Newsies had had the same advertising, impresionable youngsters, and repititious airings as High School Musical, it would have been just as big. My theory is that people's (especially teens') thinking went this way:
Hm. Newsies....
Ugh it's about the late 1800s
Ugh it's a musical. (click)
They judged it too quickly, not realizing it wasn't a typical musical. My hypothesis was slightly confirmed when I showed the movie to my 15-year-old neice who detests musicals. At first her reaction was as I mentioned above, but after "Carrying the Banner" not only did she develop a crush on Mush, but it became one of her favorite movies.
Idiots are fun. No wonder every village wants one.
Newsies being 1 year younger than I am makes me feel old. It doesn't seem like this film has been around that long. But whenever I think of Newsies now, I think of Christian Bale dropping the f-bomb 40673045 times . What happened to you Christian!?!?
The only thing I like aged is my scotch--Chuck Bass
Haha I'm a year older than Newsies too! I thought Christian was just being in character. That's what Jack would say if it wasn't a Disney movie, right? Hahaha.
Idiots are fun. No wonder every village wants one.
"Newsies being 1 year younger than I am makes me feel old."
Please don't say that carmel_latte! Because if it makes you feel old, it makes me feel REALLY old! lol, I was 14 when I saw it back when it was released.
I would never have guessed that true romance and Detroit would ever go together.
My son and I went to see it in the theatre. I don't remember knowing about it in advance but there was a free second movie--something called Beauty and the Beast. I think that's why we went. We both quite enjoyed it though and I have no idea why other people did not immediately enjoy it from the start. We purchased the home video as soon as we could and the soundtrack also. Funny, my son is now quite the Christian Bale fan too but I doubt that he actually remembers seeing this in the theatre as he was only 3.
So, anyway, I completely agree with you about advertising. I did not go to see it because I'd heard of it, quite the contrary. Seems like Disney wrote it off even before it premiered.
Heh! "Newsies"/"High School Musical" have the same director, Kenny Ortega, who at least one guy said (2002, four years BEFORE HSM) hadn't done a movie since, and "Newsies" is in its own right a hiot on Broadway...(2016).
Amanda Bynes is hot and Lindsay Lohan is not.
Profile pic: Courtney Thorne-Smith.
Because of christian bale's success
Your no bunny till some bunny loves you
It has little to nothing to do with CB's success. The movie has had a cult following for a long time now. Christian's real commercial success has only been a few years.
Drama Queen
It is very hard to separate Christian's fame from this movie's cult popularity. They kind of go hand in hand. And it wasn't his current mainstream fame-it was his cult actor status of the 90s that caused this movie to begin to have a cult following (Christian was named one of the top 8 cult figures of the 90s by Entertainment Weekly). I know a few of the fans of Newsies today are not even fans of Christian much, but I'm just referring more to some of the causes of the beginning cult popularity of this film.
I would say that he was a cult figure due to Newsies- not the other way around as the previous poster (I'm sorry, I forgot his/her signature; the post saying "Because of Christian Bale's success) suggested. And don't get me wrong, I love Christian Bale's movies and I think he's a fine actor, I just think that this movie isn't still popular 17 years later because of him. I've been loitering around these boards for years and time after time people say how they just watched this movie in a music or a history class and thats how they were introduced to it; not that they were looking for a Christian Bale movie to watch and stumbled upon Newsies.
I may have made absolutely no sense and for that I apologize. It's late, my brain's not all here at the moment, haha.
Drama Queen
I agree. I don't think Christian Bale's success correlated to Newsies' popularity. I mean, I think we had a loyal fanbase well before he became the celebrity we all know in 2009. I was certainly a fan of Newsies before Christian played Batman in Batman Begins. And I mean, this film was released on DVD back in 2002 and yeah, I stumbled upon this film in middle school. I think little by little, the cult status of this film blossomed into the great fanbase we have now.
Don't forget your second wind.
The more I think about it, I kind of agree with both of you after all. I've noticed that most of the really big fans of Newsies don't appear to be big fans of Bale (post American Psycho anyway). And I've also noticed that a large number of huge Bale fans have never even seen Newsies for various reasons. A lot this probably has to do with the huge difference in feel of Newsies from almost every other movie Christian has made.
But I'm sure his presence in the film hasn't kept it's popularity from continuing to grow
[deleted]
I've loved the movie since I first saw it in 2001. I was 2 when it came out. You know what I remember from the disney channel then? The 2nd round of mouseketeers. If they had been in this movie it prob would have been a bigger hit then. I still love it though. And I'm kind of glad that it's not huge. I love showing it to people for the first time and seeing other people enjoying it and laughing at Christian Bale as a cowboy.
shareAhh I've loved this movie for like ever lol!!!! I was 2 when it was released and I remember my sis watching it and I liked the songs and so on. And then I kept watching it as I got older and around the sixth grade, my newsie-freakness just exploded and now I just love it. Pretty much a rabid fan as someone who posted before me put it. I love Newsies. Newsies is life. And that's it lol! To me, it's just the best movie ever, my fave!!!!
~R.Phoenix B.Renfro H.Ledger~
StrawberryGusher
The Beatles = Life
i saw this movie when it initially came out on video. i probably rented it 3 or 4 times that year. i loved musicals and still do. then i lost track of it. i tried to remember what it was but was unsuccessful. i just remembered it was about news boys. finally i re-found it in college. i still remembered some of the songs from it over 10 years later. this is definitely a cult film, and that's the way i like it. it makes it that much more specially when you find a newsies lover in the midst of people. i've actually had a couple newsies nights were some people get together to watch it.
p.s. carry the banner is playing on my ipod as i type :)
Hey, doesn't this boxer sorta look like Mush in this picture?
http://www.vg.no/sport/boksing/artikkel.php?artid=585105
I loved it from the get-go. I saw a trailer and wanted to see it so bad but we didn't get to go to the movies a lot. I wanted to rent it but it always seemed to be out. So instead we rented Curly Sue. And guess what movie was actually inside the case (remember this was back in the age of VHS - for all you super young-ins that was the format before DVD. A big bulky black thing.) I was so excited I probably watched it a dozen times over that two or three days. Then my friend who had cable recorded it for me when it was on the Disney Channel and then I was so happy the day I got an official purchased VHS copy for Christmas or my birthday. Even better was when it was finally released on DVD. If I could have worn out a CD I would have done so to my sister's copy. I can't believe I still don't own a copy of the CD myself.
And yeah, for those who said you're only a year older than the movie and think you're old, please don't say that because then I, too, am not only old, I'm ancient.
Well I didn't know about it when it was released in 1992 since I was 4 but the first time I watched this movie a few years ago was when I first fell in love with it. The music is so great and the characters are so lovable.
shareI just watched the movie tonight because Netflix kept suggesting it to me and I was intrigued because Christian Bale was in a musical. It also got a lot of high ratings on Netflix so I decided to give it a shot. I LOVED it. How could I not have heard of this movie before?? I love musicals and I love Disney, so I don't know how this one slipped by me. Anyway, this movie was just so fun and feel-good. Loved the songs and choreography. I'm sad that it was a flop when it came out. I'm sure it would have been more successful if it were released today now that musicals have made a comeback. Now I have to tell all my friends about this movie!
shareFrom experience I know that I first watched Newsies because of Christian Bale, three years ago when I was fifteen. (I'm eighteen now, I still love it. xD)
But I didn't even know that the Newsies community was around since before he was even in Batman Begins. Way before. So I don't think Christian Bale is what made the movie as popular as it is now. He just sorta leads some fans to the movie. >3
With me, I watched Swing Kids in my history class, grew unreasonably attracted to Thomas and realized that was Batman... so I started obsessing over Christian Bale. I watched The Prestige and then heard that Christian was in this movie called "Newsies". Because I love musicals I was so for it. From then on Newsies has left a special place in my heart. <3