Released: December 20, 2017

Directed By: Michael Gracey

Written By:  Jenny Bicks

Stars: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Keala Settle and a bunch of other actors.

Plot: Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

Taglines: The Impossible Comes True

How did this movie do?
Budget: $84 Million
Box Office: $435 Million

• Jenny Lind was written with Anne Hathaway in mind.

• In the United Kingdom, on March 23, 2018, the soundtrack became only the second album in 30 years to achieve 11 consecutive weeks at number 1, equalling the record set by Adele’s 21.
  
  
• As of January 25, 2019, the album has spent the sixth most time at number one at 28 non-consecutive weeks, matching the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

• In September 2019, a sequel for the film was already in development, with Jackman confirmed to reprise his role. However, the sequel’s future is now uncertain after Disney chose to end a distribution deal for Chernin Entertainment’s films by 20th Century Fox in early 2020. In September 2022, Jackman stated that he was still interested in a sequel being produced if both companies could come to an agreement.
  
  
• Rebecca Ferguson’s voice was dubbed by Loren Allred. Ferguson had studied music and admitted that she can carry a tune but since Jenny Lind, her character, is considered the best singer in the world, dubbing her voice would be in service of the movie. However, in order to get into the role, Ferguson insisted on singing the song in front of the extras while filming.
  
  
• Hugh Jackman read some three dozen books on P.T. Barnum to prepare for the title role.
  
  
• According to Hugh Jackman, the film’s nine-year development process from conception to completion was, in part, due to studios’ unwillingness to take a risk on an original musical. What finally sold the deal at 20th Century Fox was the future Oscar-nominated song “This is Me”, which had literally been written by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul during the 2 hour flight to the studio meeting where the film was green-lit.
  
  
• During a workshop with Fox executives when the movie was in the process of being green lit, Hugh Jackman had surgery on his nose to remove skin cancer. Hugh Jackman had 80 stitches and was told by his doctor to not sing. Hugh Jackman followed the doctor’s recommendation until it came to the last song From Now On where Hugh chose to sing. Halfway through he noticed his nose was bleeding.
  
  
• In January 2017, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that their doors were closing forever, due to decreasing attendance and growing public opposition to the circus’s supposed mistreatment of animals. Their last shows were in May 2017.
  
  
• Zac Efron said that the kiss that he and Zendaya had in this film was his favorite kiss of all time. However, he has also joked that his kiss with Dwayne Johnson in Baywatch (2017) was his favorite.
  
  
• In reality, P.T. Barnum dabbled in several industries before “show business,” including the lottery business. In an early apartment scene, various old signs can be seen lying against a corner wall, including one that says “Barnham Lottery” in large letters – a nod to his many colorful endeavors prior to becoming the greatest showman.
  
  
• Among Barnum’s “freaks,” the film portrays Asian conjoined twins. The actual twins were Chang and Eng Bunker, two brothers born in Siam (modern day Thailand), whose heritage was the basis of the term “Siamese twins.” Chang and Eng retired after their life in P.T. Barnum’s circus to North Carolina, got married and had eleven children and ten children, respectively. However, they became destitute after the American Civil War and went on tour again. They both died in 1874, Chang from a brain blood clot and Eng from heart failure, or shock (the sources differ), merely three hours later.
  
  
• The film features eleven new songs written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the Academy Award winning lyricists of La La Land (2016). From early on in pre-production on the film, the decision was made to have the musical style to evoke more that of contemporary musical genres like pop and hip hop rather than that of a traditional, classical musical style that would accurately evoke the film’s 1800s setting. As Pasek said, “The choice was to express not just the characters’ feelings, but also how ahead of his time P.T. Barnum was. He wasn’t bound by the world in which he lived; he wanted to create one.”
  
  
• Omitted from the movie because of its link to slavery is P.T. Barnum first attraction and initial incursion into show-business: Joice Heth, an African-American woman who Barnum bought in 1835 from a plantation in Kentucky. Elderly and blind, she was presented by Barnum as the 161 years old nurse of George Washington. Playing her role to the letter, Joice would sing lullabies, tell anecdotes about Washington and other stories, all invented by Barnum. A year into the tour, Joice died and Barnum sold her body to a New York City surgeon who wanted to perform an autopsy, with the condition for the event to be public, so Barnum could sell tickets. Over 1,500 people assisted. When the surgeon determined Joice was really around 80 years old, Barnum claimed that Joice was still alive and that the person in the autopsy was someone else. It was only after this event that Barnum started his museum.
  
  
• This is Michael Gracey’s directoral debut. He spent 20 years as an animator, digital compositor, and visual effects supervisor.
  
  
• Sam Humphrey, the 22-year-old Australian actor who plays Tom Thumb in The Greatest Showman is 127cm or 4’2″ in real life. The real Tom Thumb never grew taller than 103cm and was adopted by P.T. Barnum at the age of 4 to join Barnum Circus. Sam Humphrey had to walk on his knees in the movie, to make him look smaller. His real lower legs and feet were digitally edited out of the shots where they would have showed, but mostly he is filmed sitting or standing with his lower legs out of shot.
  
  
• Phillip Carlyle and Anne Wheeler were fictional characters, along with their love story, made up for the film. However, Carlyle is based on James Anthony Bailey (P.T. Barnum’s co-founder and show business partner in real life) and James Llewellyn Hutchinson. Anne is mostly based on James Bailey’s wife Ruth Louisa Bailey (nee McCaddon).
  
  
• When Barnum tries to persuade Carlyle to join his circus, Barnum says that Carlyle has a flair for show business. The scene originally ran longer, with Carlyle remarking that he doesn’t know what ‘show business’ means, to which Barnum responds that it is because he just invented it. This line featured prominently in trailer, but was cut from the finished movie.
  
  
• Hugh Jackman stated that this film was the hardest he prepared for compared to Logan (2017).
  
  
• Unnamed oddities and the dancers/actors that portray them (because for some reason they’re given numbers instead of names on here): -Elephant-skinned man: Jeremy Hudson -Albino twins: Caoife Coleman and Mishay Petronelli -Blockhead (the man with lots of piercings): Taylor James -Voodoo twins: Ilia Jessica Castro and DeAnna Walters -Red-haired gypsy: Christina Glur -Strong man: Timothy Hughes -Three-legged man: Jonathan Redavid -Snake charmer: Nalja Gilliam -Oriental man: Alex Wong -Tattoo man: Shannon Holtzapffel -Dog boy: Luciano Acuna Jr. -White-haired African man: Khasan Brailsford.
  
  
• This is Zac Efron’s fifth musical along with the High School Musical trilogy and Hairspray (2007).
  
  
• Entertainment journalists called the film a flop after it debuted at #4 in the U.S. with a tepid $9 million, far behind Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017). The film unexpectedly held well from strong word of mouth and repeat viewing and stayed in the box office top ten for eleven weeks, partly helped by the release of a singalong version. By April 2018, it was still in wide release and 20th Century Fox was actually forced to start withdrawing it from cinemas In order to meet contractual agreements (with the likes of Sky Movies and to hit its publicized DVD release date. Some cinema chains complained to Fox that the film probably had another two months of theatrical life left in it, and it played even longer. It finally left theaters in July 2018, after an astounding eight month theatrical run (most films close after three). And as an unexpected bonus, the film’s soundtrack album was the top selling album worldwide in 2018.
  
  
• The role of Tom Thumb , portrayed by Sam Humphrey, was re-voiced by actor James Babson.
  
  
• Counterintuitively, Shannon Holtzapffel, the actor who portrays “Tattoo Man,” has no tattoos of his own. A body suit was used. However, the real life “Tattoo Man,” also known as “Prince Constantine,” (real name George Costentenus) was genuinely covered from head to toe in tattoos (save for portions of his ears and the soles of his feet). All together he had 387 separate tattoos including exotic animals, geometric shapes, flowers, and writing in various languages.
  
  
• Surprisingly, this film did not portray James Anthony Bailey who was a co-founder Of Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus although he had a major impact on the circus and would later go on, with P.T. Barnum to create “The Greatest Show On Earth.” However, the character Phillip Carlyle has some similarities to Bailey.
  
  
• Near the end of “A Million Dreams” when Barnum is cradling Charity’s pregnant belly, you can see various signs in their apartment against the wall, presumably of failed businesses. One sign reads “Barnum Lottery”. Barnum actually did run a lottery in Bethel from 1828 to 1834.
  
  
• Sam Humphrey plays General Tom Thumb who met Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington. However, he looks like one of P.T. Barnum’s other performers, Admiral Dot, the Eldorado Elf. The Admiral met Abraham Lincoln at the White House.
  
  
• Both Zac Efron and Zendaya are former Disney channel stars, Zac was in the High School Musical trilogy and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: Odd Couples (2006), and Zendaya was in Shake It Up (2010), Frenemies (2012) and K.C. Undercover (2015).
  
  
• This is Hugh Jackman’s third movie musical after Oklahoma! (1999) and Les Misérables (2012).
  
  
• The musical “Barnum” played at the St. James Theatre on Broadway from April 30, 1980 to May 16, 1982. Two members of the original Broadway cast are background actors in this film. Marianne Tatum played Jenny Lind, and Leonard Crofoot played Tom Thumb.
  
  
• Barnum’s wife’s family’s name is “Hallett.” This is pronounced the same way as “Howlett,” which was the last name of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine character (James “Logan” Howlett) from the X-Men movies.
  
  
• Young P.T. Barnum is caught stealing a loaf of bread. In Les Misérables (2012), Hugh Jackman played Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s children.
  
  
• Michael Gracey said the movie is similar to West Side Story (1961), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Sound of Music (1965).
  
  
• This is the second movie for Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams since Deception (2008).
  
  
• Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, and Zendaya have each played characters in films adapted from Marvel comics. Jackman played Wolverine in the X-Men film franchise, Williams played Anne in Venom (2018), and Zendaya played MJ in the Spider-Man installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  
  
• During the filming of what would be the last take of the fire at the circus, the staged fire quickly became out of control when a large light fixture broke off the roof of the building and fell into the flames. Five retired volunteer firemen working as extras sprang into action to help keep the flames at bay until the FDNY could respond. Around 150 people were on set at the time, but because active filming had wrapped already, nobody was injured. The entire set was a loss, including $300,000 in lights. Though a huge loss financially and materially, the blaze gave the post-production crew a good idea of what the building would truly look like on fire, and provided the special effects team with valuable footage (the director kept the cameras rolling during the blaze).