Hairspray (2007 film)
Hairspray is a 2007 musical romantic comedy film based on the 2002 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on John Waters's 1988 comedy film of the same name. Produced by Ingenious Media and Zadan/Meron Productions, and adapted from both Waters's 1988 script and Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell's book for the stage musical by screenwriter Leslie Dixon, the film was directed and choreographed by Adam Shankman and has an ensemble cast including John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron , Elijah Kelley, Allison Janney, and Nikki Blonsky in her feature film debut. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, the film follows the "pleasantly plump" teenager Tracy Turnblad (Blonsky) as she pursues stardom as a dancer on a local television dance show and rallies against racial segregation. The film began development in 2004, and Dixon reworked Meehan and O'Donnell's first draft of the screenplay to tone down the musical's campiness. In 2005, Shankman agreed to direct the film. Composer/lyricist Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman reworked their songs from the Broadway musical for the film's soundtrack, and also  wrote four new songs for the film. Principal photography commenced in September 2006 with a budget of $75 million, and ended in December of that year; filming took place on locations in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and on soundstages at Toronto's Showline Studios. Recording sessions for the film's songs and soundtrack took place in San Diego, California in the United States. "Hairspray" premiered on July 10, 2007, at the Mann Village Theater and was released on July 20, 2007, in the United Kingdom and the United States. The film was critically and financially successful, breaking the  record for biggest sales at opening weekend for a movie musical, which the film held until July 2008 when it was surpassed by "Mamma Mia!" and later "" in October. "Hairspray" went on to become the tenth highest grossing musical film in US cinema history, behind the film adaptations of "Grease", "Chicago", and "Mamma Mia!", and stands as one of the most critically and commercially successful musical films of the 2000s. Available in a variety of formats, "Hairspray"s Region 1 home video release took place on November 20, 2007. USA Network purchased the broadcast rights to "Hairspray" and was scheduled to  debut the film on cable television in February 2010, but in the end it did not broadcast that month. Instead the film was pushed back and premiered on USA on July 24, 2010, with sister channel Bravo also showing it multiple times, and in February 2011 aired on ABC for over-the-air broadcasts. Plot. In 1962, Tracy Turnblad is a 16 year old heavyset high school student living in Baltimore. Along with her best friend Penny Pingleton, Tracy frequently watches "The Corny Collins Show", a local teen dance television show. The teenagers who dance on the show attend Tracy  and Penny's high school, among them Amber von Tussle and her boyfriend Link Larkin, the lead dancers. Amber's mother, Velma, manages the station WYZT, ensuring that Amber is prominently featured. Corny Collins and the dancers on the show are white, and Velma only allows African-American dancers on the show once a month on "Negro Day", hosted by R&B disc jockey Motormouth Maybelle. One day, one of the dancers on the show takes a leave of absence, and auditions for a replacement are held the next day. Tracy attends, but Velma rejects for her overweight physique and for  supporting integration. Tracy is given detention for missing class in order to attend the audition, and discovers the "Negro Day" kids practicing in the detention room. Tracy befriends Seaweed, Motormouth Maybelle's son, who teaches Tracy several dance moves. As Tracy leaves detention, she inadvertently meets Link, and dreams of a life with him. At a record hop, Tracy's new moves garner Corny's attention, and he chooses her to join the show. Tracy quickly becomes one of Corny's most popular performers, affecting Amber's chances of winning the show's annual "Miss Teenage Hairspray" pageant and her  relationship with Link, as he grows fonder of Tracy. Mr. Pinky suggests that Tracy should be the spokesgirl for his Hefty Hideaway boutique. Tracy persuades her agoraphobic mother, Edna, to accompany her to the boutique as her agent. Tracy introduces Seaweed to Penny, and the two become smitten. Later, Seaweed and his younger sister Little Inez take Tracy, Penny, and Link to a party at Maybelle's store. Edna finds Tracy there and tries taking her home, but Maybelle convinces her to stay, and tells her to take pride in herself. At the party, Maybelle informs everyone that Velma has  cancelled "Negro Day", and Tracy suggests that they march for integration. Link is unwilling to jeopardize his career by marching, straining his relationship with Tracy. Edna returns to her husband Wilbur's shop, but Velma gets there first, and tries to seduce him. After accusing Wilbur of infidelity, Edna forbids Tracy to be on the show. She changes her mind after she and Wilbur reconcile. The next morning, Tracy sneaks out of the house to join the protest, which is halted by a police roadblock. The protesters engage in a brawl, while Tracy runs to the Pingletons' home, where Penny  allows her to hide in a fallout shelter. However, Penny's mother Prudy reports Tracy to the police and ties her daughter to her bed for "harboring a fugitive". Having been bailed out by Wilbur, Seaweed and his friends help Tracy and Penny escape. Link visits Tracy's house to find her, and realizes that he loves her. Seaweed and Penny also acknowledge their love during the escape. With the pageant underway, Velma assigns police officers to guard the WYZT studio to prevent Tracy from entering. She also rigs the pageant tallies to guarantee that Amber will win. Penny arrives  at the pageant with Edna, while Wilbur, Seaweed, and the Negro Day kids help Tracy infiltrate the studio. Just as Corny Collins is about to declare Amber the winner of the pageant for the fourth time, Tracy interrupts, leading the studio to break out into dancing and cheering. Link breaks up with Amber to dance with Tracy, and later invites Little Inez onto the stage to dance. Little Inez is declared winner of the pageant following a late but big surge of votes. Her victory over Amber makes her the lead dancer on the show, and integrates "The Corny Collins  Show". Offstage but on camera, an angry Velma tells Amber that she switched the vote tallies in her (Amber's) favor, which should have made it impossible for anyone else to win. By revealing the fraud while unknowingly on camera, Velma is fired from her job as station manager. At the end of the celebration of Little Inez's victory and the integration of the show, Tracy and Link share their first kiss as the crowd cheers. In addition to the principal actors, the film contained several cameo appearances by individuals involved in the history of "Hairspray": Musical numbers. Music  producer/composer/co-lyricist Marc Shaiman and co-lyricist Scott Wittman were required to alter their Broadway "Hairspray" song score in various ways in order to work on film, from changing portions of the lyrics in some songs (e.g., "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs", "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful", and "You Can't Stop the Beat") to more or less completely removing other songs from the film altogether. "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now", a popular number from the stage musical, features Tracy, Penny, and Amber arguing with their respective mothers. Neither Shankman nor Dixon could come up with  a solution for filming "Mama" that did not require a three-way split screen — something they wanted to avoid — and both felt the number did not adequately advance the plot. As a result, "Mama" was reluctantly dropped from the film during pre-production, although it is used by Shaiman as an instrumental number when the "Corny Collins" kids dance the "Stricken Chicken". A special version of "Mama" was recorded for the film's end credits in May 2007, during the final score recording process, which featured vocals from each of the three women most famous for portraying Tracy Turnblad: Ricki  Lake from the 1988 film, Marissa Jaret Winokur from the original Broadway cast, and Nikki Blonsky from the 2007 film. Harvey Fierstein, who portrayed Edna as part of the original Broadway cast, has a brief cameo moment in the end credits version of "Mama" as well. "It Takes Two", a solo for Link, was moved from its place in the stage musical (on Tracy's first day on "The Corny Collins Show") to an earlier "Corny Collins" scene, although only the coda of the song is used in the final release print, and the song's background music can be  heard immediately after the reprise of "The Nicest Kids in Town". "Cooties", a solo for Amber in the stage musical, is present in this film as an instrumental during the Miss Teenage Hairspray dance-off. As with "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now", a version of "Cooties", performed in a contemporary pop rendition by Aimee Allen, is present during the end credits. The performance of a vintage dance called The Madison, present in both the 1988 film and the stage musical, was replaced for this version by a newly composed song, "Ladies' Choice". Portions of the Madison dance steps  were integrated into the choreography for the musical number "You Can't Stop the Beat", and the song to which the dance is performed on Broadway can be heard during Motormouth Maybelle's platter party in the film, re-titled "Boink-Boink". "The Big Dollhouse", "Velma's Revenge" (a reprise of "Miss Baltimore Crabs"), and the reprise of "Good Morning Baltimore" were the only numbers from the musical not used in the film in any way. Shaiman and Wittman composed two new songs for the 2007 film: "Ladies' Choice", a solo for Link, and "Come So Far (Got So Far  to Go)", a song performed during the end credits by Queen Latifah, Blonsky, Efron, and Kelley. Another "new" song in the 2007 film, "The New Girl in Town", had originally been composed for the Broadway musical, but was deemed unnecessary and discarded from the musical. Director Shankman decided to use the song to both underscore a rise-to-fame montage for Tracy and to showcase Maybelle's "Negro Day", which is never actually seen in either of the earlier incarnations of "Hairspray". One additional Shaiman/Wittman song, a ballad entitled "I Can Wait", was composed for the film as a  solo for Tracy, meant to replace the stage musical's reprise of "Good Morning Baltimore". "I Can Wait" was shot for the film (Tracy performs the number while locked in Prudy's basement), but was eventually deleted from the final release print. The audio recording of "I Can Wait" was made available as a special bonus track for customers who pre-ordered the "Hairspray" soundtrack on iTunes, and the scene itself was included as a special feature on the film's DVD release. Post-production took place in Los Angeles. Composer/co-lyricist Shaiman continued work on the film's  music, employing the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra to record instrumentation for both the songs and the incidental score. Production. Early development. Following the success of the Broadway musical of the same name, which won eight Tony Awards in 2003, New Line Cinema, who owned the rights to the 1988 John Waters film upon which the stage musical is based, became interested in adapting the stage show as a musical film. Development work began in late 2004, while a similarly film-to-Broadway-to-film project, Mel Brooks' "The Producers", was in production. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the executive producers of  the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Chicago", were hired as the producers for "Hairspray", and began discussing possibly casting John Travolta and Billy Crystal (or Jim Broadbent) as Edna and Wilbur Turnblad, respectively. Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, authors of the book for the stage musical, wrote the first draft of the film's screenplay, but were replaced by Leslie Dixon, screenwriter for family comedies such as "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Freaky Friday". After a year's deliberation on who should direct the film, Zadan and Meron finally decided to hire Adam Shankman to both direct and  choreograph "Hairspray". Upon learning he had been hired, Shankman arranged a meeting with John Waters, who advised him "don't do what I did, don't do what the play did. You've gotta do your own thing." Despite this, Shankman still noted "all roads of "Hairspray" lead back to John Waters." Tory Gardner and his company Alterian, Inc. were hired to design and create the look of Edna Turnblad on John Travolta. Costume designer Rita Ryack wanted to put Edna into several revealing outfits, so Travolta ended up being encapsulated in prosthetics. He wore silicone prosthetics on his  head and neck, and foam latex arms and legs that connected to a spandex and foam body suit. Adaptation changes. Dixon was primarily hired to tone down much of the campiness inherent in the stage musical. The 2007 film's script is based primarily on the stage musical rather than the 1988 film, so several changes already made to the plot for the stage version remain in this version. These include dropping several characters from the 1988 version (such as Arvin Hodgepile (the role Mr. Spritzer fills), Velma's husband Franklin, Corny's assistant Tammy, the beatniks, et al.), removing  the Tilted Acres amusement park from the story, and placing Velma in charge of the station where "The Corny Collins Show" is filmed. One notable difference between the stage musical, the original film, and the 2007 film version of "Hairspray" is that Tracy does not go to jail in the 2007 version (thus eliminating the musical's song "The Big Dollhouse"). In both previous incarnations of "Hairspray", Tracy is arrested and taken to jail along with the other protesters. Edna is presented in this version as an insecure introvert, in contrast to the relatively bolder incarnations present in the 1988  film and the stage musical. Among many other elements changed or added to this version are the removal of Motormouth Maybelle's habit of speaking in rhyming jive talk and doubling the number of teens in Corny Collins' Council (from ten on Broadway to twenty in the 2007 film). Dixon restructured portions of "Hairspray"s book to allow several of the songs to blend more naturally into the plot, in particular "(You're) Timeless to Me" and "I Know Where I've Been". "(You're) Timeless to Me" becomes the anchor of a newly invented subplot involving Velma's attempt to  break up Edna and Wilbur's marriage and keep Tracy off "The Corny Collins Show" as a result. The song now serves as Wilbur's apology to Edna, in addition to its original purpose in the stage musical as a tongue-in-cheek declaration of Wilbur and Edna's love for each other. Meanwhile, "I Know Where I've Been", instead of being sung by Maybelle to the kids after being let out of jail, now underscores Maybelle's march on WYZT (which takes place in the stage musical at the end of "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful"). The song "Big , Blonde, and Beautiful" was inspired by a line that Tracy delivered in the original film ("Now all of Baltimore will know: I'm big, blonde and beautiful!"), but in the stage version and in this film, Motormouth Maybelle performs the song. A reprise of the song was added to the 2007 film, which is sung by Edna and Velma. Pre-production and casting. "Hairspray" was produced on a budget of $75 million. Casting director, David Rubin, introduced an open casting call to cast unknowns in Atlanta, New York City, and Chicago. After auditioning over eleven hundred candidates, Nikki Blonsky  a high school student from Great Neck, New York was chosen for the lead role of Tracy. Nikki Blonsky auditioned for the role of Tracy Turnblad in New York City in 2006 at eighteen years old. She had no previous professional experience in acting or in singing. Blonsky had auditioned for the role because it became her dream to play the role of Tracy after seeing the musical on Broadway. Blonsky, working at Cold Stone Creamery at the time, received the news from film director, Adam Shankman, that she had received the part. Relative unknowns Elijah Kelley and Taylor Parks  were chosen through similar audition contests to portray siblings Seaweed and Little Inez Stubbs, respectively. John Travolta was finally cast as Edna, with Christopher Walken ultimately assuming the role of Wilbur. Several other stars, including Queen Latifah, James Marsden, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Allison Janney were chosen for the other supporting adult roles of Motormouth Maybelle, Corny Collins, Velma Von Tussle, and Prudy Pingleton, respectively. Teen stars Amanda Bynes, and Zac Efron were cast as Tracy's friends Penny and Link, and Brittany Snow was cast as her rival, Amber Von Tussle. Jerry Stiller, who played Wilbur Turnblad in the original  film, appears as plus-sized women's clothes retailer Mr. Pinky in this version. Since "Hairspray"s plot focuses heavily on dance, choreography became a heavy focus for Shankman, who hired four assistant choreographers, Jamal Sims, Anne Fletcher, and Zach Woodlee, and put both his acting cast and over a hundred and fifty dancers through two months of rehearsals. The cast recorded the vocal tracks for their songs as coached by Elaine Overholt in the weeks just before principal photography began in September. Principal photography. Principal photography took place in Toronto, and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada from September 5 – December 8, 2006 . "Hairspray" is explicitly set in Baltimore, Maryland and the original 1988 film had been shot on location there, but the 2007 film was shot primarily in Toronto because the city was better equipped with the sound stages necessary to film a musical. The opening shots of the descent from the clouds and the newspaper being dropped onto the stoop are the only times that the actual city of Baltimore is shown in the film. Most of the film was shot at Toronto's Showline Studios. Most of the street scenes were shot at the intersection of Dundas Street West and  Roncesvalles Avenue. A PCC streetcar with Toronto Transit Commission livery is seen in the opening sequence. Some of the signs for the 1960s-era stores remain up along the street. Toronto's Lord Lansdowne Public School was used for all of the high school exteriors and some of the interiors, while the old Queen Victoria School in Hamilton was also used for interiors. Scenes at Queen Victoria were shot from November 22 to December 2, and the school was scheduled to be demolished after film production was completed. As of the 2017–2018 school year, there are no plans to close  this school. Thinner than most of the other men who have portrayed Edna, Travolta appeared onscreen in a large fat suit, and required four hours of makeup in order to appear before the cameras. His character's nimble dancing style belies her girth; Shankman based Edna's dancing style on the hippo ballerinas in the "Dance of the Hours" sequence in Walt Disney's 1940 animated feature, "Fantasia". Although early versions of the suit created "a dumpy, Alfred Hitchcock version of Edna," Travolta fought for the ability to give his character curves and a thick Baltimore accent. Designed by Tony  Gardner, the fat suit was created using lightweight synthetic materials, consisting of layered pads and silicone, which was used from the chest upwards. The suit provided the additional benefit of covering Travolta's beard, eliminating the problem of his facial hair growing through his makeup midday. Shankman's inspirations. Shankman included a number of references to films that influenced his work on "Hairspray": Reception. Box office. "Hairspray" debuted in 3,121 theaters in North America on July 20, 2007, the widest debut of any modern movie musical. The film earned $27.5 million in its opening weekend at #3, behind "I  Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". This made "Hairspray" the record-holder for the biggest opening weekend for a movie based on a Broadway musical. This record was later broken by the release of "Mamma Mia!", which grossed $27.8 million on its opening weekend. "Hairspray" is currently the twelfth highest grossing musical in U.S. cinema history, surpassing "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" ($145 million) and "Dreamgirls" ($103 million), released seven months prior. Ending its domestic run on October 25, 2007, "Hairspray" has a total domestic gross of $ 118.9 million and $202.5 million worldwide. Its biggest overseas markets include the United Kingdom ($25.8 million), Australia ($14.4 million), Japan ($8 million), Italy ($4.6 million), France ($3.9 million) and Spain ($3.8 million). At the time, this made "Hairspray" the third musical film in history to cross $200 million internationally, behind 1978's hit "Grease" ($395 million) and 2002's "Chicago" ($307 million). It is the seventh highest-grossing PG-rated film of 2007, and has grossed more than other higher-budgeted summer releases like "Ocean's Thirteen" ($117 million ) and "Evan Almighty" ($100 million). Two weeks after its original release, new "sing-along" prints of "Hairspray" were shipped to theaters. These prints featured the lyrics to each song printed onscreen as subtitles, encouraging audiences to interact with the film. On January 4, 2008, "Hairspray" was re-released in New York City and Los Angeles for one week because John Travolta was present for Q&A and autographs. Critical reception. "Hairspray" has garnered acclaim from film critics such as Roger Ebert, "The New York Times", and "The Boston Globe", as well as a smaller number of reviews comparing it unfavorably  to the Waters original. The film is one of the top picks on Metacritic, with an average of 81 from 37 critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 219 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80, making it one of 2007's best-reviewed films. The site's consensus states: ""Hairspray" is an energetic, wholly entertaining musical romp; a fun Summer movie with plenty of heart. Its contagious songs will make you want to get up and start dancing". Peter Rainer of "The Christian Science Monitor" named it the 4th best  film of 2007. Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" named it the ninth best film of 2007. Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, saying that there was "a lot of craft and slyness lurking beneath the circa-1960s goofiness," also stating that "The point, however, is not the plot but the energy. Without somebody like Nikki Blonsky at the heart of the movie, it might fall flat, but everybody works at her level of happiness..." Ebert also noted that this film is "a little more innocent than Waters would have made it..." Krishna Shenoi, of the Shenoi  Chronicle, called the movie "Shankman's masterpiece," saying that it moved away from his previous works into a different direction, making a light comedy that deals with serious issues maturely. Shenoi also said that the film was everything he wanted "Grease" to be. Lou Lumenick of "The New York Post" hailed "Hairspray" as "The best and most entertaining movie adaptation of a stage musical so far this century — and yes, I'm including the Oscar-winning "Chicago"," calling it "one of the best-cast movies in recent memory..." "New York Daily News" critic Jack Matthews called the film "A great  big sloppy kiss of entertainment for audiences weary of explosions, CGI effects and sequels, sequels, sequels." "The Baltimore Sun" review offered Michael Sragow's opinion that "in its entirety, "Hairspray" has the funny tilt that only a director-choreographer like Shankman can give to a movie," pointing out that Shankman skillfully "puts a new-millennial zing behind exact re-creations of delirious period dances like the Mashed Potato." Dana Stevens from "Slate" called "Hairspray" "intermittently tasty, if a little too frantically eager to please." Stevens noted that "Despite its wholesomeness, this version stays remarkably true to the spirit of the  original, with one size-60 exception: John Travolta as Edna Turnblad," saying "How you feel about "Hairspray" will depend entirely on your reaction to this performance..." "The New Yorker"s David Denby felt the new version of "Hairspray" was "perfectly pleasant," but compared unfavorably to the Broadway musical, since "[director Adam Shankman and screenwriter Leslie Dixon] have removed the traces of camp humor and Broadway blue that gave the stage show its happily knowing flavor." Denby criticized the dance numbers, calling them "unimaginatively shot," and he considered "the idea of substituting John Travolta for Harvey Fierstein as Tracy's hefty mother... a  blandly earnest betrayal." Stephanie Zacharek of "Salon.com" found "Hairspray" "reasonably entertaining. But do we really need to be entertained reasonably? Waters' original was a crazy sprawl that made perfect sense; this "Hairspray" toils needlessly to make sense of that craziness, and something gets lost in the translation." Zacharek was also displeased with the way Latifah's performance of "I Know Where I've Been" was incorporated into the movie, saying "The filmmakers may believe they're adding an extra layer of seriousness to the material... [but] the inclusion of this big production number only suggests that the filmmakers fear the  audience won't get the movie's message unless it's spelled out for them." Despite critical and commercial success, "Hairspray" garnered some criticism upon its release from the LGBT community, particularly Travolta's portrayal of Edna Turnblad, a role played in the original film by drag performer Divine, and in the stage adaptation by Harvey Fierstein. Kevin Naff, a managing editor for a Washington, D.C./Baltimore area gay newspaper named the "Washington Blade", called for a boycott of the film, alleging that Scientology, in which Travolta is an adherent, was homophobic, and it supported "cure" workshops for homosexuals. Adam Shankman  rebuffed Naff's proposed boycott stating that Travolta was not a homophobe, as he (Shankman), Waters, Shaiman, Wittman, and several other crew and creative staff were homosexual, and Travolta got along well with the entire production. Shankman made it clear "John's personal beliefs did not walk onto my set. I never heard the word 'Scientology'." Home media. "Hairspray" was released in standard DVD and HD Blu-ray Disc formats in Region 1 on November 20, 2007. The Blu-ray disc is encoded with 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio. The standard DVD was released in two versions: a one -disc release and a two-disc "Shake and Shimmy" edition. Bonus features on the two-disc release include two audio commentaries, a feature-length production documentary, featurettes on the earlier versions of "Hairspray", dance instruction featurettes, deleted scenes including Tracy's deleted song "I Can Wait", a slightly extended ending, and an alternate version of the "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" reprise, and behind-the-scenes looks at the production of each of the film's dance numbers. The Blu-ray release, a two-disc release, includes all of the features from the two-disc DVD, and includes a picture-in -picture behind-the-scenes feature, which runs concurrently with the film. An HD DVD version of the film was originally slated for release in 2008, but was canceled due to New Line Cinema's announcement that it would go Blu-ray exclusive with immediate effect, thus dropping HD DVD support. Cancelled sequel. Due to "Hairspray"s financial success, New Line Cinema had asked John Waters to write a sequel to the film. Waters reunited with director/choreographer Adam Shankman for the project, and songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman were set to compose the film's musical numbers. The story would  have looked at Tracy's entering the late 1960s era of music and the British Invasion, and used the Hippie movement and Vietnam War as backdrops. While no official casting was announced, New Line said that they hoped to "snag much of the original "Hairspray" cast." John Travolta, however, publicly announced that he would not return because he is "not a big sequel guy". The sequel was set for a mid-July 2010 release by Warner Bros., which owns New Line Cinema. However, in June 2010, Shankman told British press that "Hairspray 2: White Lipstick" was no longer in development . Shankman has also said that there will be no sequel. In February 2019, John Waters announced he had written a sequel for HBO, but did not produce it.