The film "Les Miserables" based on the novels of Victor Hugo will be released in the U.S. on Christmas Day.
Cast List and More on IMDB
Original Text by Hugo on Project Gutenberg
The movie is already earning kudos and award nominations:
Contact Music
Les Miserables has become the favourite to win Best Picture at the Oscars after being nominated for four prizes at the Golden Globes - a key barometer for the Academy Awards. Lead stars Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway received acting nods, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil are shortlisted for their song 'Suddenly', while the movie itself is shortlisted for Best Motion Picture (Comedy and Musical).
Largely shot at Pinewood studios, Tom Hooper's Les Miserables cost around £38 million and featured the actors singing every song live on set. Speaking to the BBC after the Golden Globe nominations were announced, The Kings Speech director said, "I'm just pleased for the whole team who made Les Miserables. Making a musical is an intensively collaborative type of film-making, because it requires such an army of people. An army who aren't there on a conventional movie. The singing teachers who helped the cast, through to the onset pianists who played in the live duets with the singers."
Though musicals and comedies are often ignored by the Academy, Les Miserables has been installed as the 9/4 favourite to snatch the Best Picture Oscar away from the hands of Ben Affleck and Steven Spielberg in February. Hugh Jackman is now the third favourite to win Best Actor, though it would a huge shock should Daniel Day-Lewis not win the award for his turn as Abraham Lincoln. Anne Hathaway is favoured for an Oscar nomination, though the bookmakers still firmly believe Jennifer Lawrence will win Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook.
Les Miserables hits theaters in the U.S on Christmas Day, with a UK release following on January 11, 2013.
About the original musical on the Les Mis Official Website
Les Misérables is now the longest running musical in the world and, in October 2010, celebrated its 25th anniversary with a theatrical first – three different productions of the same musical staged at the same time in one city – the star-studded concerts at The O2, the acclaimed new 25th Anniversary Production (which completed its sell-out UK Tour at London’s Barbican Theatre) and the original production, which continues its record breaking run at the Queen’s Theatre, London.
From Wikipedia:
It has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, original French lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer. Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a burly French peasant of abnormal strength and potentially violent nature, and his never ending quest for redemption after serving 19 years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for starving relatives. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly Bishop inspires him to, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters he becomes entangled with get swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade.
The musical adaptation was originally conceived and produced in France, before its English language adaptation, which opened at the Barbican Centre in London, England, on 8 October 1985, where the production overcame bad notices through word of mouth, launching the beginning of what has turned out to be a global sensation.
. . . At the opening of the London production, critical reviews were negative, and literary scholars condemned the project for converting classic literature into a musical. Public opinion differed, the box office received record orders. The three-month engagement sold out, and reviews improved. The London production, as of late 2012, has run continuously since October 1985: the second longest-running musical in the world after The Fantasticks, the second longest-running West End show after The Mousetrap. It is the longest-running musical in the West End followed by The Phantom of the Opera.
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