On paper – and in execution, if we’re being honest – all of the ingredients were there for 2014’s star-studded musical Into the Woods to become a massive success, which is pretty much precisely what happened.
Director Rob Marshall was a veteran of both the genre and the world of Disney-backed blockbusters after previously helming the Academy Award-winning Chicago and Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides, while the source material is one of the most widely-adored Broadway productions there’s ever been.
Throw in a fantastical, effects-heavy twist that was made for the silver screen and a cast that boasted Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, and many more hugely popular names to complement the presence of James Corden, and Into the Woods couldn’t have been anything other than a guaranteed smash hit.
Sure enough, the $50 million movie hauled in $213 million at the box office, secured a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 71 percent, and even found itself shortlisted for Oscars in the Best Supporting Actress, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design categories.
All that being said, it would be remiss to point out that the target audience didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as they were hoping, at least if we use its 49 percent Rotten Tomatoes user average from north of 50,000 votes and a 5.9/10 IMDb rating with upwards of 140,000 votes being tallied.
Regardless of the lukewarm reception among the intended demographic, Into the Woods continues to sing the right tune on streaming a decade after its debut, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the top-viewed features on the iTunes worldwide watch-list this week.
