The Broadway musical based on the life and career of imaginary pugilist Rocky Balboa is closing on Aug. 17, after 216 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre.
Based on Sylvester Stallone?s Academy Award-winning film from 1976, Rocky, which opened in 2012 and continues to play to full houses in Hamburg, Germany, failed to capture the imagination of theatergoers on the Great White Way.
That Rocky is closing after a six-month run is a huge disappointment to investors. It was thought that a musical about love and boxing, despite its cartoonish plot, had the makings of a big hit.
It was not to be.
The reasons for Rocky?s failure are many, but according to the experts, a ?savvy and sophisticated marketing campaign couldn?t overcome the cognitive dissonance that American theatergoers felt in imagining the laconic bruiser Rocky burst out into song.?
?Cognitive dissonance? never stopped anyone in the past. Maybe Rocky, with its feel-good triumphalism and endless spin-offs, has just run its course.
