The Greatest Showman Essay

801 Words2 Pages

Spectator expectations and previous viewing experience can influence responses in a number of ways. Spectator expectations can be formed by genre and stars. An example of this is ‘The Greatest Showman’ (2017), a musical that features a number of stars in its cast such as Zac Efron, who is well known for his role as Troy Bolton in the ‘High School Musical’ franchise, and Hugh Jackman who has starred in action films, but also in the film adaptation of the musical ‘Les Miserables’. Through previous viewing experiences spectators will have formed expectations for ‘The Greatest Showman’ based on what they know to expect from musicals and from the stars involved. Though Zac Efron began his career through musicals, he had not starred in another musical …show more content…

This means that a lot of expectations would have been formed by fandom interaction and the previous viewing experiences a spectator may have had with the Harry Potter franchise. In the years between ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ (2011) and ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, J. K. Rowling has released a lot of information on the official website Pottermore, expanding on the world of Harry Potter, and fans who interact with the fandom would have formed expectations about the American wizarding world that would feature in ‘Fantastic Beasts’ based on this information. ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ is also based on a book that was initially a fictional textbook within the Harry Potter books, before it was published. This affected the expectations of fans leading up to the films release, causing some confusion on how a fantasy textbook could be turned into multiple films, let alone one. Spectators who interacted with fandom less were more confused about the source of inspiration for the new film. Other fans expected the film, which had the same name as the book, to follow the journey of the fictional author ‘Newt Scamander’ as he discovered

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