Actress Ele Keats claimed that she received a book of negative reviews after the release of the cult classic musical film “Newsies.”
Before reaching cult classic status, the 1992 Disney musical “Newsies” flopped hard at the box-office, according to Insider. Despite featuring A-listers like Christian Bale and Bill Pullman, the film failed to recoup the $15,000,000 budget, Entertainment Weekly reported in 2007.
“I got mailed this, like, phone book of horrible reviews, including some personal-attack type of reviews,” Keats told Insider. Keats portrayed “Sarah Jacobs” in the film, and told the outlet it was “really hard” to read the reviews. Keats told Insider that she received “all of the horrific reviews for ‘Newsies’ in the mail” from “someone at Disney.”
“I think that someone in the press department thought maybe I would enjoy reading them. I don’t know why,” she told Insider, before suggesting that Disney sent her the reviews because she was in the middle of “working on another Disney movie.”
Keats’ co-star Arvie Lowe Jr. told the outlet that he also received copies of “Newsies” reviews from Disney nearly every week. (RELATED: Disney+ Removes Classic Cartoon ‘Anastasia’ But Not For The Reason You Think)
The musical was rife with drama from the off, according to another Insider report. Bale, who is originally from Wales, UK, struggled to secure the correct visa to stay in California for filming, the report noted. Keats and Bale, who played love interests in the flick, started dating during filming but broke up right before they were due to film their main scene together, Insider continued.
The film scraped $1,200,000 on its opening weekend and received some of the worst reviews in movie history, Insider reported. Twenty years later, the “Newsies” script arrived on Broadway, where it has since been nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning two, the outlet reported.