There may be news about the Broadway transfer of Matilda the Musical next month. At a press briefing today to announce the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2012/13 winter season, outgoing artistic director Michael Boyd and executive director Vikki Heywood revealed that the team were going to New York for discussions at the end of this month. However the transfer happens, the RSC intends to retain “absolute control” over the production, meaning they’ll take the lion’s share of the return as well as the risk.
The RSC raised all of the musical’s original £2.6 million capitalisation and will recoup its investment within weeks having already taken £7 million at the box office in the West End, where the Roald Dahl adaptation opened in October at the Cambridge Theatre (the advance alone there now sits at £3 million). The ultimate template for success is Les Miserables, still going strong in the West End and internationally 22 years on. To date, the RSC has stockpiled £19 million from Les Mis - the difference being that the Boubil and Schonberg blockbuster has been produced by Cameron Mackintosh so the RSC has only earned royalties. How much more might they multiply that figure by with Matilda? Amongst the shows many accolades to date are no fewer than nine nominations in this year's Whatsonstage.com Awards.
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