With Wicked and Emilia Pérez, Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez Have Broken a Curse After Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga’s Tragic Fates
- Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and Lady Gaga have tried their hands at musicals.
- Swift and Gaga's respective musicals, Cats and Joker 2 have been huge critical disappointments.
- On the other hand, Grande and Gomez have been able to turn around the narrative with Wicked and Emilia Pérez.
As far as music making is concerned, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga are easily four of the best pop artists with international acclaim. All of them have numerous prestigious accolades to their names and millions of fans across the world. Not to mention two of them have also gained billionaire status this year.
Another thing that is common among all of them is having acting credits to their name. While it has been a big year for all four, three of them have been notably involved in musical films. However, there is one big difference and it is in terms of the success of their movies.
Taylor Swift’s Cats and Lady Gaga’s Joker 2 Turned Out to be Box Office Bombs
Taylor Swift began her career as a country musician when she was a teenager with the release of her self-titled debut album. She began trying her hand at professional acting in 2010. She appeared in the 2010 film, Valentine’s Day opposite Taylor Lautner as part of the ensemble cast.
After making appearances in two more films in 2012 and 2014, she landed a role in the musical film, Cats, which was released in 2019. The movie, based on 1981’s Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End musical, had an ensemble cast featuring the likes of Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, and James Corden. It turned out to be a commercial flop with reviews so negative that it is now regarded as one of the worst films ever.
Fast forward to this year, Lady Gaga’s portrayal of the DC character Harleen Quinzel was highly anticipated in the sequel of the 2019 blockbuster, Joker. As the release date drew closer, the film began looking more like a musical than a movie about a supervillain. This obviously did not bode well with fans and critics, and the film ended up with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 19%.
In all honesty, the teaser and trailer for the movie were enough to scare the fans away. Although Gaga and director Todd Phillips insisted that the film was not a musical, everyone who watched it begged to differ. As expected, the movie turned out to be a critical and commercial bomb with a Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating of 32%.
Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez Have Broken the Curse with Wicked and Emilia Pérez
This year has also seen the release of two other musicals, namely, Wicked and Emilia Pérez. While the former is the Ariana Grande-led film adaptation of the eponymous stage musical, the latter is a musical crime comedy led by a female ensemble that features Selena Gomez.
Despite the initial criticism that Wicked attracted, the film has turned out to be a critical success with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 89%. Similarly, Emilia Pérez has also been praised for the choreography and the one-of-a-kind story that it has brought forth. The film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 79%. Evidently, both these movies have been critically more successful than Cats and Joker 2.
This is not to say that Swift and Gaga are bad at acting. On one hand, the former might not have major acting credits but she is a good performer. On the other hand, the Poker Face songstress has been lauded for her acting skills in movies like House of Gucci and A Star is Born. Either way, it is great to see that Grande and Gomez’s success with their respective movies has turned around the narrative of musical films starring pop stars.
