On April 10, 1992, a Disney musical called Newsies was released in theaters. This movie starred Christian Bale, singing and dancing as Jack Kelly, the leader of the Newsies. It wasn’t a success at the box office making back only less than a fifth of its $15 million budget according to Wikipedia. However, it gained a cult like following in years to come having little girls like me, at the time, singing and dancing along with the movie. The movie also spawned a Broadway play that continues to be quite popular with audiences.

Newsies is not the best film; it certain has its flaws. I guess that’s why it has a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes with 38 reviews. However, the audience score for Newsies is an 88% with 50,000+ ratings. It can be corny at times watching it now as an adult.

Newsies is a musical with twelve original songs based on the 1899 Newboys’ Strike directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega according to Screenrant. The movie starred Christian Bale, Robert Duvall, Ann Margaret, and Bill Pullman.

On March 29, 2012, Newsies: The Broadway Musical opened on Broadway in New York City with Jeremy Jordan in the role of Jack Kelly and Mike Faist (better known as Riff from Disney’s West Side Story) as Morris Delancey. My mother took my sister and I to see the performance as we have always been fans of the movie, and we were not disappointed. We sang along to hits like “Seize the Day” and “King of New York.” I was highly impressed by choreography as well.

Disney originally only invested $5 million dollars in Newsies: The Broadway Musical according to the New York Times. They were a tad timid after the flops of “Tarzan” and “The Little Mermaid” on Broadway which Disney laid out a lot of money for. Disney also only started the run of Newsies the musical on Broadway for three months. The show eventually closed on Broadway on August 24, 2014 after 1,004 performances according to Wikipedia. The show continues to run off Broadway to this day.

Disney recently commemorated the 30th Anniversary of the cult classic with a new collective pin. Thanks to Disneypinsblog for this picture of the new pin:

Disney+ has both the original 1992 musical of Newsies along with a performance of Newsies: The Broadway Musical available to watch. I highly suggest watching both for a night of musical entertainment. I am biased though, as I have always been a fan of the movie despite it originally being hailed as a flop.

Have you ever seen Newsies the 1992 movie or Newsies: The Broadway Musical? Let us know below in the comments!