Les Misérables (2012 Film)

Key figures: Tom Hooper (director); Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean); Russell Crowe (Javert); Anne Hathaway (Fantine); Eddie Redmayne (Marius); Amanda Seyfried (Cosette); Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen (the Thénardiers); Samantha Barks (Éponine); Aaron Tveit (Enjolras); Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil (composers); Cameron Mackintosh (producer)

Summary

Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, 2010) with a production budget of $61 million, premiered on December 5, 2012, at the Empire Leicester Square in London and entered wide U.S. release on Christmas Day, December 25, 2012. The film adapts Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s 1980 stage musical, itself derived from Victor Hugo’s sweeping 1862 novel, following ex-convict Jean Valjean’s decades-long redemptive arc across Napoleonic and July Monarchy France, culminating in the failed Paris Uprising of 1832. Hugh Jackman anchored the ensemble as Valjean, with Russell Crowe as the relentless Inspector Javert, Anne Hathaway as the doomed factory worker Fantine, and Eddie Redmayne as the idealistic revolutionary Marius Pontmercy. The film grossed $442.8 million worldwide—$149.3 million domestically and $293.5 million internationally—ranking among 2012’s top-ten highest-grossing films and becoming, at the time of release, the highest-grossing musical film ever made.

Production

Live Vocal Recording

The film’s defining technical departure was Hooper’s insistence that actors sing live on set to piano accompaniment fed through earpieces, rather than lip-syncing to pre-recorded orchestral tracks—the standard method for film musicals since the 1950s. Conductor Stephen Brooker later led a 70-piece orchestra at AIR Lyndhurst Studios in London that overdubbed the final recordings, but the emotional foundation was always the live-on-camera take. This technique allowed actors to adjust tempo, phrasing, and breath in real time to serve dramatic moments, an approach particularly evident in Hathaway’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream,” which was filmed in a single unbroken take held in close-up.

Casting

Casting was announced between November 2011 and March 2012. Hugh Jackman, who had performed in musical theatre on Broadway, was an early lock; Anne Hathaway was cast in January 2012 after extensive screen-tests and lost approximately 25 pounds for the role, shaving her head on camera. Samantha Barks, who had played Éponine in the 25th Anniversary Concert of the stage musical at the O2 Arena in 2010, was the only principal cast member drawn directly from the stage production. Eddie Redmayne, then best known for British television and theatre, was cast as Marius Pontmercy.

Filming Locations

Principal photography ran from March to June 2012, shooting on locations in Winchester, Gosport, and Greenwich in England, as well as purpose-built sets at Pinewood Studios outside London. The Paris barricade sequences were constructed there as full-scale practical sets.

Release and Box Office

Les Misérables entered wide release in the United States on December 25, 2012, a competitive December marketplace that also included The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which had opened on December 14. The film took in roughly $18 million on Christmas Day and $27.3 million across its first full weekend (December 28–30, 2012) from 2,808 theaters, and held strongly through the New Year holiday corridor as families attended over the break. By the time it exited wide release in 2013, it ranked among Universal Pictures’ most profitable productions of the year.

Critical Reception

Critical response was polarized. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 70% approval rating from 245 critics, while Metacritic aggregated a score of 63 out of 100. Reviewers consistently praised Hathaway’s devastating, close-up performance and Jackman’s committed portrayal of Valjean’s spiritual transformation, while many expressed reservations about Russell Crowe’s vocal limitations in the demanding baritone role of Javert; Peter Travers in Rolling Stone wrote that Crowe “sometimes seems more invested in the acting than the singing.” Samantha Barks’ screen debut as Éponine and Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Marius earned widespread praise, foreshadowing Redmayne’s later Academy Award win for The Theory of Everything (2014).

Awards and Recognition

The film received three Academy Award wins from eight nominations at the 85th Academy Awards (February 24, 2013):

Hathaway’s win for Best Supporting Actress was widely anticipated from the moment the film was screened. She also won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Award in the same category, completing the major precursor circuit.

The film’s Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, released December 11, 2012, through Universal Music Group, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart dated January 12, 2013, with 67,000 copies sold in its first week—the highest charting movie-musical soundtrack album in decades.

Legacy and Influence

Les Misérables fundamentally altered production norms for the contemporary film-musical genre. Before 2012, virtually every major Hollywood musical in the sound era used pre-recorded playback; after the film’s commercial success and awards recognition, studios began at least evaluating live-recording as an option, and subsequent productions including Into the Woods (2014) and La La Land (2016) cited the film as a reference point. The film also rejuvenated popular and critical interest in stage-to-screen adaptations of long-running Broadway and West End properties, contributing to a wave of similar projects commissioned through the mid-2010s.

The film intersected with several other cultural events of late 2012. Its December release placed it alongside The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the earlier Skyfall (released October 26, 2012) in a remarkably competitive fourth quarter for prestige cinema. The casting of Samantha Barks—a performer discovered through the BBC talent competition I’d Do Anything (2008)—also represented one of the first prominent cases of a television-talent-competition alumna transitioning to a major studio film role.

See Also

• Skyfall (2012 Film) — the year’s highest-grossing British production, part of the same competitive late-2012 prestige-cinema season
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — Peter Jackson’s December 14 blockbuster, released eleven days earlier into the same holiday marketplace
• The Dark Knight Rises (2012 Film) — another marquee 2012 release navigating spectacle and prestige
• Adele’s Album “21” — 2012 Dominance — the other defining music-and-screen crossover moment of the year
• Whitney Houston’s Death (February 2012) — another 2012 event centred on a landmark screen-musical performer

Sources

• Les Misérables (2012 film) — Wikipedia
• Les Misérables Box Office — Box Office Mojo
• 85th Academy Awards — Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• Billboard 200 Chart History: Les Misérables Soundtrack — Billboard