It will likely be more LES MISERABLES than STAR IS BORN.
LES MISERABLES is told entirely in song - it is storytelling expressed through music. The film adaptation however emphasized the storytelling more than the way the songs are sung - thus, the live-singing was used to tell the story through acting, with the singing generally complementing the acting choices. But the plot and the characterizations were both expressed via music.
A STAR IS BORN is more of drama, with some music in it. I am not sure if it is technically a true musical because it is basically only the leading lady who expresses herself through music. Neither did the leading man or other characters express themselves through singing (from my recollection of the Judy Garland film version).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Star_Is_Born_(1954_film)
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH has a full musical score that basically complements the telling of the storyline. During the workshop last February, there were a number of Broadway actors and actresses ( including Jeremy Jordan, Andrew Keenan Bolger, Caroline Bowman, Keala Settle, Cynthia Erivo, Nathalie Weiss, etc) who sang various parts and ensemble music. So, it sounds like a full-blown movie musical. It differs from LES MISERABLES presumably in two aspects --
*In LES MISERABLES, the actors used live-singing all throughout -- they were singing directly into small mics which was feeding into the sound system. It was raw singing, dictated by the actor's acting choices ( a very good example was Valjean's Soliloquy), and that was what formed the soundtrack. There was a long rehearsal period ( as much as 2 months for Hugh Jackman and about 4-5 weeks for the rest) and many filming takes ( in some cases as many as 15-20 or so, to complete a musical scene). The only scene where they had to dub the singing was the opening scene where the convicts were singing against the loud ocean spray sounds. It did not work too well and that had to be dubbed by the actors themselves.
In the case of SHOWMAN, they said they will be using the traditional manner of presenting a movie musical -- the songs will be pre-recorded in a recording studio and the actors will lipsynch to it while acting out the scenes. There will be advance work in a recording studio which can minimize the number of takes for the actual filming.
*LES MISERABLES was basically completely sung-through ( songs and dialogs, called recitatives, were both sung). It would not have been very pragmatic to have recorded the entire musical score and the sung dialogs in a studio ... and then lipsynch to it later on. Also, director Tom Hooper wanted heightened realism in the storytelling which put acting as the higher priority of expression! My understanding is that SHOWMAN is going to be a traditional musical where there is spoken dialog for action scenes and singing for the musical score where the songs are supposed to also advance the story.
Presumably there will also be a few dance numbers that usually characterizes a true musical, either presented with a song as a complete musical number or simply on its own ?
It seems THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH will be the first studio-produced and -distributed original movie musical in about 2 decades!
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