Movie musicals are back, but think MTV

Oscar, that fickle golden statuette, hasn't gone home with a musical film since 1968, when "Oliver!" won Best Picture.

Now, the surprise box-office success ($173 million worldwide) and Best Picture nomination of "Moulin Rouge" have raised the prospect of more of Hollywood's biggest names bursting into song and dance on screen. "Chicago," based on a hit Broadway musical and starring A-list actresses Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger, is scheduled to light up movie screens next Christmas. A big-screen rendition of the hit Broadway dance musical "Contact" is in the works, too.

To be sure, a big hit musical on Broadway doesn't automatically translate into a Hollywood film. Miramax just took "Rent," a Tony Award winner, out of development. And though movie studios own rights to nearly every musical that's opened on the Great White Way, actually making a movie musical remains a gamble.

Then there's the fact that "Moulin Rouge" has nothing to do with the Broadway genre. If it becomes a model for Hollywood studios, as some industry insiders predict it will, the movie musical of the future will draw more heavily from MTV than from "My Fair Lady."

" 'Moulin Rouge' is the ultimate MTV musical," says Howard Fine, acting coach to some of Hollywood's biggest stars. "It was designed for a short attention span, and the younger generation has embraced it with a passion."

Indeed, its box-office success ($173 million worldwide) came in large part because "Moulin Rouge" was embraced by teens – the much-coveted audience that drives so many decisions about which movies get made.

Indeed, though there's no apparent rush to revive old-fashioned movie musicals, various hybrid offspring already abound on the screen. Teen pop stars Mandy Moore and Britney Spears, for instance, both just headlined movies in which they sang their own songs. Rap star Ice Cube is in multiplexes now, acting to the rhythm of his own tunes in the movie "All About the Benjamins." Will Smith will release his latest album to coincide with his coming "Men in Black 2." Rap artist Eminem is scheduled to star in and produce the soundtrack for the coming semi-autobiographical "8 Mile," a film directed by Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") and starring Kim Basinger as his mother.

"The rap MTV community is where all this is happening right now," says Annlee Ellingson of Box Office magazine. "A musical for today almost has to have a video tie-in of some sort."

The success of "Moulin Rouge" is in no small measure due to the video, released on MTV at the same time as the film last May. It did not feature the film's stars, Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, who are primarily actors, not singers. Rather, it starred some of the biggest names of the MTV generation, such as Pink, Christina Aguilera, and Lil' Kim.

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