The proof
Films musical fans love made longer-running musicals.
Before building Overture we checked whether its core score means anything. We took every Broadway musical adapted from a film that opened between 1985 and 2023, asked Qloo how much musical-theatre fans love each source film, and compared that with how long the original production ran.
58
shows in the test
0.42
rank correlation with run length
0.16
the same for fame alone
< 0.001
chance of a correlation this strong at random (5,000 shuffles)
Qloo score of the source film among musical fans →
Strong fit
565
median performances
53% ran 500 or more
Middle
148
median performances
26% ran 500 or more
Weak fit
116
median performances
20% ran 500 or more
It isn't the fan panel we picked
Same 58 shows, different fan panels. Run 2026-10-20 against the same Qloo affinity data.
Main panel The Greatest Showman, Les Misérables, Mamma Mia!, La La Land, Chicago, Into the Woods | 0.42 |
Second panel Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music, West Side Story (2021), Dreamgirls, Hamilton | 0.31 |
Third panel Rent, Grease, Cats (2019), Annie (1982), Hairspray (2007), Sweeney Todd | 0.36 |
Control: action fans Fast & Furious, John Wick, Die Hard | -0.07 |
Any group of musical fans finds the signal. Action fans don't, which is what you'd expect if the score measures musical-theatre taste.
How it was done
- Listed every Wikipedia article in both “Broadway musicals” and “Musicals based on films” (132), and read each one's original Broadway run length and source film.
- Kept shows that opened 1985 to 2023. Seasonal holiday shows were left out.
- Left out shows that were themselves filmed as musicals (Hairspray, The Producers, Mean Girls, The Color Purple, Sunset Boulevard, Mary Poppins, Spamalot, Moulin Rouge!), because fans of the musical film could lift the source film's score. That would be circular.
- Scored every source film with Qloo rank calls through the official MCP server. Scores came back identical across batches.
- Compared scores with run lengths using rank correlation, with fame (Qloo popularity) as a check.
What this does not show
- 58 shows is a small sample. The score shifts the odds; it does not predict one show's result.
- Run length is a stand-in for success. Some long runs lost money and some short ones toured profitably.
- Qloo's data is recent, so it measures how fans feel about these films today, not on opening night. Removing filmed musicals was our guard against the stage show changing the film's reputation.
- Book, score, cast, budget, theatre and timing all matter. Overture covers one input: whether the audience is already there.