Regal’s Movie Musical Programming Series Bridges Stage and Screen

This month, Regal is spotlighting musicals and music-driven titles on the big screen with May’s “Musical Mayhem” series. Each day, a different, specially programmed film is screened in theaters across the country, offering a musical theatergoing experience to audiences.

Brooks LeBoeuf, Senior Vice President of US Content at Regal, is among the team behind this initiative. Having grown up watching Disney musicals on the big screen, LeBoeuf is a longtime devotee of the medium, counting Moulin Rouge! and Chicago among his favorites (He’s also a self-proclaimed Aaron Tveit superfan). And so, when developing Regal’s programming series, it was a no-brainer that there would be a dedicated lineup of big-screen musicals.

Movies in the series range from well-known musical adaptations like Mamma Mia! and Hairspray, to music-driven titles like A Star is Born, as well as films with memorable soundtracks such as Pitch Perfect. The run culminates in Little Shop of Horrors, which coincides with their usual “Halfway to Halloween” programming. 

In a world that is increasingly online, the series offers a unique opportunity for people to step away from their phones and into a shared experience with other moviegoers. Each ticket is priced at a discounted rate of $4.99, in an attempt to eliminate barriers for audiences. 

We caught up with LeBoeuf, who told us about how the programming series came together, what audiences can expect, and how it helps to bridge the gap between the theater and the big screen. Take a look at the full lineup of titles here.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

How did this series come together?

It’s actually part of a bigger programming series that we started last September. It originated with a month of masterpieces in September of 2025 and then we had such phenomenal success that we decided to do it the next month, in October, with “31 Screams on Screen” and kept [it] going with holiday programming. Now it’s become part of our programming DNA where every month we offer up a different, themed repertory program. Every day is a unique film that we show in around 200 to 250 locations across the country. 

This lineup really runs the gamut. There are biopics, musical adaptations and then more obscure films like Repo! The Genetic Opera. I’m curious how you decided on this specific list of titles.

Whenever we do this program, we don’t want to cater to just one niche audience. We want to use the theme and pull in as many people as possible. The whole goal here is to help people, and younger generations especially, fall in love with moviegoing and for parents to bring their kids and relive that experience [of] watching Grease on the big screen and see it through their children’s eyes.

We come up with a dream list of titles that we would love to put on screen and then, of course, there’s the step of going to the studios and seeing what’s available and then that narrows it down. As we do that process, we start to see different themes develop and so it was a natural fit for things that went from the stage to the screen. Then we thought, “Let’s reverse that,” and we found films that were then turned into Broadway musicals. 

And then we wanted to pay a nod to musical pop icons that have made pretty big hits in their career theatrically and there are some films that just have stellar soundtracks. With that big screen environment and 7.1 surround sound, there’s nothing like being immersed in the sound of a great soundtrack. 

It’s a team of eight people at Regal [and] it takes about three weeks of meetings to really nail down a list. But everyone has a seat at the table, and we try to make sure that there’s a wide representation of different demographics and ages in the room. 

This can also be an entry point for people who maybe wouldn’t normally go to a musical. A strange title like Repo! The Genetic Opera draws their attention, and they might see something they would never check out otherwise.

I do think that’s a really important element. Not everyone has access to New York; not everyone lives in New York. It’s an expensive venture for some, but we have theaters across the country. There are touring productions, but not every community has a touring production. We feel that we have an obligation to make these opportunities to these stories feel more accessible.

People who buy a ticket to a movie musical—that creates a spark. They then would want to see that on Broadway or on a touring production one day [that might not happen] without having seen it in a theater and being moved the way that it did to them and leaving that resonance of them going and listening to the soundtrack on repeat and starting to research who originated Elphaba and Glinda in the original Wicked and hearing that soundtrack versus the movie soundtrack and becoming a super fan.

I think ingesting content that you’re really in love with on the stage, on screen: it’s all additive, and it’s all kind of its own ecosystem. I’m a huge fan of Broadway, I’m a huge fan of movies, and to me, one never replaces the other. 

What are you seeing in terms of the demographic of those coming to this series?

We really push ourselves to think about what musicals Gen Z and Gen Alpha would want to see. We don’t have an online system where we solicit feedback, but I am very aware of and very involved in Reddit forums. From the onset of September of last year, this program created its own Reddit forum and there are several spawns from that. People are very engaged and I think that they’re picking up on [the fact] that we’re listening. For instance, Pitch Perfect was a film that kept coming up. Every month, people would say, “I’m voting for Pitch Perfect.” 

We could tell, just based on the comments, that people, when it first came out, were either too young or missed it and never saw it in theaters. [They] found it later on streaming and are really excited to experience that in theaters. I spoke to the enhanced experience of what movie theaters do for a film… but it’s also about community. Musicals, like a lot of genres, become eventized when you’re sharing them with an audience. 

Music can be so emotional and emotion can be something that you feel and you pick up on a room with strangers. It’s a totally unique experience compared to what you could ever get at home. 

I know you’ve been in the movie business for a while. Have you seen a change in moviegoing habits in regard to musicals? If so, in what ways?

Since I’ve been in the industry, there’s generally always been musicals every year. They might be smaller because they didn’t resonate with the audience or they weren’t something that transcended the Broadway crowd into a larger audience, but musicals have always been a mainstay in theaters. Looking back at the history of cinema, The Sound of Music was the first big blockbuster for movie theaters and so musicals are in our DNA. I’ve never seen a time when it’s gone away, but I do see that there are peaks and valleys, as there are with superhero films, for instance, or comedies. Sometimes there’s a lot of fervor around a genre and then that fervor sizzles out because it’s kind of been oversaturated, but they always remain. They just become a bit less popular. And then they’ll make a comeback.

Wicked, for instance, coming off the heels of Cats and Dear Evan Hansen… just blew everyone away from the performance. It was such a massive success. And so now I believe that we’re back at a peak for musicals and cinema and it makes even more sense for us to do a month of musical programming to tap into that.

Could you share a formative musical moviegoing experience when you really connected with the musical on the big screen?

When I was a kid, Disney movies were all musical. Aladdin was my very first kind of movie-going experience, and it was visceral for me. Of course, it was the spectacle of it all and the big screen and the popcorn and all the tangibles of going to a movie theater. But… the neat thing about musicals is that you take a bit of it away with you because you can listen to the soundtrack and you can memorize a song. Then, when you watch it again, you’re already involved because you know exactly what the next lyric’s going to be, and you’re singing along in your head or out loud.

Musicals have always kind of played a benchmark in my career goalpost. Anyone who works in a movie theater always remembers the first blockbuster of the weekend that they started working, and mine was Moulin Rouge! I absolutely love the film. I was adamant that it would be included in this month of musicals for that reason and I can’t wait to see it myself back on the big screen. 

There are certain films where, if you watch an audience leave a theater, you can see the emotional impact that it had on them when they’re walking out. That was one of those films; people had never seen anything like it. They were so excited about what they had seen and they couldn’t wait to tell their family and friends to come see it. 

Chicago, I remember as well. I’d never seen the stage production, but obviously it had been long-running, so I’d heard of it and I was really excited to see it. It was such a great picture, which we also included. 

Aaron Tveit is my absolute favorite Broadway performer. I’ve seen everything that he’s ever done on Broadway. My very first Broadway show was Next to Normal that he was in. So when he was cast in Les Miz, I just couldn’t wait to see it because I wanted to see him on screen for the first time. 

That speaks to… how Broadway intersects with theatrical audiences. When a performer makes that move–Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, those prolific Broadway stars going to the screen: that matters. People want to see that. You see them on screen and they become an even bigger star, and then you go back to Broadway, and you’re within a few feet of them. It’s just an incredible immersive experience that I don’t know if people get with regular blockbusters, because how hard is it to get that close to Tom Cruise on a regular basis? It’s a really neat intersection of the two.

What are the long-term plans for the series? Are there plans to do this or something similar every year?