Hercules The Muse-Ical

  • One of the very first stage shows to be presented out at sea on a Disney Cruise line ship

    • The sequel to this show was Villains Tonight

  • This was one of three shows that premiered onboard the Disney Magic back in July of 1998 during its maiden voyage

  • February 1997 Walt Disney Studios went on a Hercules Mega Mall Tour to raise awareness of the movie debut in June 1997

    • Fun fact Disney originally wanted Jack Nicolson and to be Hades and Spice Girls to be the voices of the Muses.

      • The financial burden of booking them unfortunately caused those to fall through

    • The tour included over 20 different cities in North America over 5 months long

    • During the tour they gave away over 4 million cassettes of “Zero to Hero”

  • Walt Disney Studios screened the movie for 1 week in the New Amsterdam Theater

  • Fun fact was Disney got special permission from New York City mayor Rudi Guiliani to roll the Main Street Electric Parade renamed the “Hercules Electrical Parade” down 42nd Street and then up 5th Avenue

  • In theme parks around the world including Disneyland, Disney-MGM, Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland had a Hercules themed parade

  • Walt Disney Studios used the same pedigree as Aladdin and Little Mermaid to make Hercules, therefore they assumed Hercules would be a huge hit. Disney started to use Hercules IP throughout the parks and ships before it arrived to the movie theaters

  • Disney Magic then had its maiden voyage and everyone got to see the show “Hercules: The Muse-ical Comedy

  • The big issue is that Hercules came out about 13 months prior to debuting onboard the Disney Magic and by now Disney realized it was not a huge hit

  • People who sailed on the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder (which also got the show) just loved Hercules: The Muse-ical.

    • What they enjoyed most was that one part was stand-up comedy act and another part was a musical review.

  • Show ended on the Magic in 2005 and Wonder in 2008

  • At the end because of the success of the show Disney decided to make a sequel called Villains Tonight which included the three most popular characters from “Hercules: The Muse-ical” (i.e., Hades, Lord of the Dead and Pain & Panic) and had interact with them with other villains such as Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Ursula.

  • Villains Tonight debuted on the Disney Magic in 2010 and the Disney Dream the following year 2011 because of its success

  • The show ended up closing on the Disney Magic in November of 2015 and the Disney Dream version in August of 2017

  • With all of these success on the DCL fleet, Disney decided to try putting a full show on Broadway

    • The production was a success that a follow-up full production was put in the world

    • At that time the pandemic hit and things slowed down

    • During the down time Disney has decided to make a live-action version of Hercules therefore time will tell if a show will debut again on Broadway or the movie theater

  • Is it possible that Disney’s “Hercules” could eventually make its way back to the Disney Cruise Line stage?

    • The success of the live-action reboot of its animated “Beauty & the Beast” the Disney Cruise Line then made an all-new stage version of it that was based on that live-action remake

    • This production debuted on the Disney Dream back in November of 2017 about eight months after the live-action debuted in theaters