The Producers Turns Flop into Smash Hit???

Max Bialystock would be so proud … or would he? Far from being a flop, the West End production of Mel Brooks’ multi award-winning hit The Producers has recouped its £5,500,000 capitalisation, and has taken more than £20,000,000 at the box office - less than a year after opening. In the musical comedy, hapless producer Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom come up with a scam to con little old ladies out of their cash by overcapitalising their new show, Springtime for Hitler, a supposedly sure-fire failure. Opened at the West End’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 9 November 2004, The Producers broke all London theatre records for achieving the highest advance sales in a single day with takings of £375,988 on 10 November 2004. The show, which currently stars Fred Applegate and John Gordon Sinclair as as Bialystock and Bloom in London, transferred from a hugely successful run in Broadway where among other accolades it won an unprecedented 12 Tony awards. Since opening in London the show has won the Olivier, the Evening Standard, the Critics’ Circle and Whatsonstage.com Awards for Best Musical. At Drury Lane, The Producers has been seen by over 550,000 people and achieved the highest-ever weekly gross in the West End over Christmas 2004 with accounts topping £842,773. The Producers producers - Rocco Landesman, Clear Channel Entertainment, the Frankel Baruch Viertel Routh Group, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, James R Jundt, Robert FX Sillerman and Brooks himself - must be delighted.

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