Is Bradley Cooper Broadway’s next Hugh Jackman? Could be, based on the first week of sales from the new revival of The Elephant Man in which the actor stars.
Elephant Man pulled in $520,087 from just four previews. In a per-performance comparison, that’s even better than Bette Midler managed in the initial previews of I’ll Eat You Last, which also played the Booth Theater, one of Broadway’s smallest at 774 seats. The average price paid per ticket came in at $163 — more than the $160 average at Jackman topliner The River ($917,008, a new house record at Circle in the Square), another title with a heavy-duty star in an intimate venue. (But it should be noted that “River” has set a large chunk of its ticket inventory aside to sell at more accessible pricing, which will keep the average pricetag down.)
If Elephant Man sustains such boffo box office throughout its run, Cooper would join a small circle of Hollywood stars who are also sales juggernauts on the Main Stem. Jackman, Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts — with whom Cooper co-starred on Broadway in Three Days of Rain — are among the names on that very short list.
In its second week, previewing musical Side Show ($413,928 for seven previews) has yet to really lift off; the same could be said for The Last Ship ($543,860), the Sting musical whose sales have so far proven middling at best.
Still, like every other production on the boards, those two titles look poised to climb in a couple of weeks, when Turkey Day brings out tourists in full force.
