Music is the new box office champion with Elton John, Midnight Oil and Helen Reddy films set for 2019

From Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born, Working Class Boy to Springsteen on Broadway, music films and docos enjoyed huge success in 2018.

“DNA, your natural ability, the study of your craft, a development of and a devotion to an aesthetic philosophy, balls, naked desire for fame, love, adoration, attention, women, sex, a buck,” declares Bruce Springsteen.

“Then if you want to take it all the way out to the end of the night, you will need a furious fire in your belly that just won’t quit burning, These are some of the elements that will come in handy should you come face-to-face with 80,000 screaming rock’n’roll fans.”

So the Boss opens Springsteen on Broadway, the Netflix special of his extraordinary box office-busting, one-man show which closes after a year’s run in New York this weekend.

The Netflix special arrives as The Boss closes his Springsteen on Broadway show this weekend. Picture: AFP

Tomorrow, and for many weeks to come, tens of thousands of adoring Springsteen fans will be on their couches watching this compelling two-hour special of the show based on his best-selling memoir Born To Run.

Many of those fans would be among the millions of Australians who have seen the films Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born or the documentaries Working Class Boy, Gurrumul, Whitney and Midnight Oil: 1984 this year.

Music biopics and docos or films with a music-heavy narrative or soundtrack, such as Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, have proven box office and ratings gold in 2018, with the genre trend destined to continue throughout 2019.

The A Star Is Born soundtrack has dominated the pop charts. Picture: Supplied

While the television miniseries dramatisations of musical lives, such as Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted to You didn’t engage big audiences, music films struck a resounding chord not only because of the emotional pull of their songs but the compelling stories of the singers, songwriters and stars they brought to the screen.

Bohemian Rhapsody has grossed more than $800 million worldwide since it opened last month and unleashed an inevitable assault on the global album charts with the film soundtrack and the legendary British band’s greatest hits collections soaring into the top 10.

You bought the albums, now see the Queen film. Picture: Supplied

The titular song has become the biggest 20th century classic rock anthem on Spotify, Apple and YouTube, matching the massive numbers of streaming kings Ed Sheeran and Drake with 1.6 billion plays and views.

Blink TV executive producer Paul Clarke, who has written and directed the career-spanning Backburning: Midnight Oil documentary which will screen at cinemas and on the ABC next year, said the renaissance of the music movie, whether doco or jukebox musical, has been a natural reaction against the soullessness of scripted reality television and over-saturation of comic book film franchises.

A career-spanning Oils doco called Backburning is due next year. Picture: Damian Shaw

“For years I have heard the claim ‘Music doesn’t rate’. As the creator of Spicks and Specks and Long Way To The Top, I feel that’s a moribund attitude,” Clarke said.

“TV went down the reality path in the 90s and millennial years and it missed a whole breadth of storytelling — they lost out on so many stories — and the success of Netflix is proving a lot of people don’t agree with that.

“What you are seeing now is a golden age of the music documentary. The Defiant Ones was absolutely brilliant, the Jimmy Barnes story told in Working Class Boy is a beauty.

“And then it has been incredible to sit beside your teenagers and hear them bawling during Bohemian Rhapsody, being completely moved by the story, the music and the performance.”

The Gurrumul documentary recently won an AACTA trophy. Picture: Supplied

Clarke believes the appeal of the genre, whether it tells the unique and powerful story of Gurrumul or captures the profound impact on culture and fashion of 70s and 80s trailblazers including Mercury and Queen, lies in the triumph and tragedy of the rock ‘n’ roll life.

“I think these films really help people remember and contextualise why these artists are so important, so special,” he said.

“I would love to see a great doco on Prince and his music. Seeing him perform live before he died, we knew we were in the presence of a modern day Mozart.”

Network Ten’s entertainment editor Angela Bishop, a passionate film watcher even when she’s not working, suggests the enormous popularity of the music genre lies in its family appeal.

Please let there be a Prince doco. Picture: AFP

Not only can parents and children watch them together, but movies such as Mamma Mia and Bohemian Rhapsody offer mums and dads an opportunity to share the soundtrack of their youth with their offspring.

It’s one of those rare occasions when the parental record collection is considered cool by their kids.

“I knew Bohemian Rhapsody would work on paper and when the critics started saying it was garbage, I knew Queen fans would say otherwise because it is such a great story to tell,” she said.

“They wanted to see Freddie Mercury celebrated up on the screen and to introduce their kids to Freddie. My daughter Amelia was captivated by the story, and the Midnight Oil doco after I got to take her to see them play in the Domain and introduce her to the best music ever, as far as I am concerned.”

Bishop also cites the millennial vinyl revival as another cultural factor underpinning the desire of younger generations to explore the behind-the-scenes stories of rock and pop stars.

“There’s a real passion for what is regarded as real music and the soundtrack of the happier times we associate them with, and playing that on a record player,” she says.

Taron Egerton stars as Elton John in Rocketman which is out in May. Picture: Paramount Pictures

She cites Rocketman, the Elton John biopic starring Taron Egerton, as the 2019 film most likely to match the success of Bohemian Rhapsody both at the box office and as a booster to his numbers on streaming platforms and pop charts.

“I think we will see a flood of these films in the next few years. Cher’s story is now on Broadway but when she is ready, it will be a great one for the big screen,” she said.

“I would want to see the lives of Prince and Bowie, Keith Richards and Pink Floyd on film too.”

Michael Hutchence gets the film treatment again with the Mystify doco. Picture: Getty

Already slated for big and small screens next year, beside Backburning and Rocketman, are Mystify, the Michael Hutchence documentary made by his filmmaker friend Richard Lowenstein, and the Helen Reddy biopic I Am Woman.