Grosses across Broadway fell last week by nearly $15 million, but that was to be expected; the previous holiday week saw many productions playing expanded, nine-performance schedules at inflated ticket prices. The week after, Broadway is back to normal. Even without the holiday high, Broadway achieved an important benchmark last week, with cumulative grosses reaching $1 billion for the season to date.
One of last week's winners was Beetlejuice, which finished up an encore run at the Marquis Theatre January 8. The ghoulish musical closed in the $2 million club, a marker it met for the first time only the week prior. That nine-performance holiday week prevented the fan-favorite show from bringing in the highest grosses of its run, but its $2.1 million take is nevertheless quite the send-off.
Beetlejuice's last hurrah made it an unlikely member of the top-five highest-grossing shows on Broadway last week, a list topped, as usual, by the Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster-led revival of The Music Man at the Winter Garden, which brought in $3.1 million. The Phantom of the Opera, due to celebrate its 35th anniversary next month and complete its historic run in April, was the second place winner with $2.2 million, followed by Beetlejuice, Hamilton, and Funny Girl.
Family-friendly musicals were the most attended, with Wicked handily taking the top spot with 15,299 theatregoers at the Gershwin. The next highest attended was Aladdin and The Lion King, followed by The Phantom of the Opera and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Ticket prices and theatre capacities are still making the list of most attended shows look very different from the highest grossing; The Music Man was the top grosser by a long shot, but only the seventh most attended. In terms of theatre capacity, Broadway seats are still mostly filled. Across all 32 shows, 92% of seats were filled, with 23 of those productions playing to 90% or higher capacity.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (Shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- The Music Man ($3 million)
- The Phantom of the Opera ($2.2 million)
- Beetlejuice ($2.1 million)
- Hamilton ($2.1 million)
- Funny Girl ($2 million)
- The Lion King ($2 million)
- Wicked ($2 million)
- MJ The Musical
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Into the Woods
- Aladdin
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- SIX: The Musical
- The Book of Mormon
- & Juliet
- A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical
(16 of 32 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (Shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- The Phantom of the Opera (101.7%)
- Beetlejuice (101%)
- The Book of Mormon (100.8%)
- Hamilton (100.8%)
- Hadestown (100.8%)
- MJ The Musical (100.4%)
- The Music Man
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- The Lion King
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- & Juliet
- Wicked
- Aladdin
- SIX: The Musical
- Funny Girl
- A Strange Loop
- Kimberly Akimbo
- Chicago
- The Piano Lesson
- Almost Famous
- Between Riverside and Crazy
- Death of a Salesman
- 1776
(23 of 32 currently running productions)