Newsies (1992)
Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
While Jack Kelly (Christian Bale) is singing "Santa Fe", there's a part where he's riding a horse. The part when his arms are thrown out and he is bent back, he is actually riding on the shoulders of his stunt master.
At the time, the film was one of the lowest grossing live-action movies in Walt Disney Pictures' history.
Christian Bale was supposedly ashamed to tell his friends that the movie was a musical.
Although many newspaper moguls of the time hosted Christmas dinners and other holiday events for their newsboys, after the Newsboys strike, Joseph Pulitzer even went as far as to host weekend events in vaudeville houses, the period equivalent of "Kids' night at the movies".
The dress that Ele Keats (Sarah Jacobs) wears in the "High Times, Hard Times" number is an authentic 1899 dress. After every take, the costumer had to constantly sew up small holes because the dress was so old and delicate.
Most of the cast trained in dance and martial arts for eight to ten weeks, beginning in February of 1991 until April, before filming commenced.
Most of the newsies depicted in the film are based on real people from the strike such as Spot Conlon, Racetrack Higgins, Kid Blink. Jack Kelly, however, is a fabrication, though he may have been based on the real Kid Blink, who was accused of being bribed by Pulitzer to end the strike. David is most probably based on Morris Cohen, the other leader of the strike.
This movie was a critical and commercial flop upon its initial theatrical release. However, it gathered a cult following after its home video release, eventually made its filming budget back on rentals, and was deemed popular enough to be adapted into a stage musical, which premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in 2011. The musical had music and lyrics by Alan Menken (who composed the movie's music as well) and Jack Feldman (the movie's lyricist), and a new book by playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein. This musical moved to Broadway in March 2012 and closed over two years later; a North American tour also launched in 2014.
At the end of every week, the actors portraying the newsies took it upon themselves to torment director Kenny Ortega. When an upturned bucket of water missed its mark, Christian Bale and David Moscow soaked him with, as Ortega described it, "Water Uzis".
The film was originally released on April 10, 1992, which would have been Joseph Pulitzer's 145th birthday.
The song "King of New York" was written as an afterthought by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman and became their favorite song in the movie.
Joseph Pulitzer (Robert Duvall) inspired the Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious of all journalism awards.
Howard Ashman was originally going to write the song lyrics, but had to bow out due to A.I.D.S.-related complications.
Despite being a trained singer who had already sung for commercials and theatre, actress Ele Keats was an alto so her voice was a lower register than the boys, being Sarah's song ("What Will Become of the Boy?") meant for a soprano. Ultimately the producers decided to cut it from the script because they also thought that Sarah singing would have seemed too off topic to the plot.
David Sidoni and Ivan Dudynsky's trailer nearly burned down due to a fire that began in the sink.
Milla Jovovich auditioned for the role of Sarah Jacobs and while she could sing, her line readings with Christian Bale were deemed to be too abrasive. Former model and trained singer Ele Keats was ultimately cast. According to director Kenny Ortega, Keats was chosen because of her "genuine onscreen chemistry with Bale during the auditions."
The film features two Academy Award winners: Christian Bale and Robert Duvall; and one Academy award nominee: Ann-Margret
This was William Boyett's final film before his death on December 29, 2004 at the age of 77.
The film was released on the same day as 20th Century Fox's FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) (which Disney now takes control of alongside the rest of the 20th Century Fox catalog library as of 2019).
