The Now Beloved Flop That Christian Bale Regrets Starring In

It's time for a quick history lesson! In 1899, a newsboys' strike was held across New York City for two weeks. The strikers demanded increased wages for newsboys, who drove a chunk of the sales in the afternoons and evenings but ended up earning little to nothing. Circulation for Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst's newspapers was halted during this time, and the strike eventually succeeded/worked in favor of the newsboys, although other demands had to be met with compromise.

The impact of this event was so rousing that Disney made a film musical — "Newsies" — inspired by the strike in 1992, with Kenny Ortega (the "High School Musical" trilogy, "Hocus Pocus") helming the project. A young Christian Bale played strike leader Jack "Cowboy" Kelly, and composer Alan Menken — who has scored almost every Disney animated film you know and love — crafted 12 original songs for this now-beloved movie. Despite these promising elements, however, the film did not perform well in theaters, as "Newsies" completely failed to recoup its $15 million budget and became a box office flop that cost the Mouse House millions of dollars. However, this did not stop the movie from eventually becoming a cult favorite and, later on, being adapted into a Broadway classic.

To add insult to injury, The Razzies (which, by all accounts, should not exist) awarded "Newsies" Worst Song of the Year around the same time Menken and his close collaborator, the late Howard Ashman, won an Oscar for "Beauty and the Beast" in the Best Song category. I mean, sure, "Newsies" is no "West Side Story", but Menken's score features some timeless bangers and imbues the spirited story with the appropriate adrenaline boost required to bolster the theme of rebellion.

Moreover, the failure of "Newsies" did impact its young cast. For instance, it evoked complicated feelings in Bale, who regrets starring in a musical at such a tender age.

Bale's big break as a child actor was in Steven Spielberg's war drama "Empire of the Sun," in which he was only 13. Although this helped him gain his footing, his first major project post-"Empire" (as a lead) was "Newsies," which was not only a commercial disaster but also not a critical darling by any stretch of the imagination. While most of its reviews praised Bale's ability to shine in what critics had otherwise deemed a lackluster film, the actor admitted to Entertainment Weekly in 2007 that he has complicated feelings about the musical:

"At 17, you want to be taken very seriously — you don't want to be doing a musical [...] Time healed those wounds. But it took a while."

Part of Bale's complex feelings about "Newsies" might have stemmed from the fact that the actor had signed on before the addition of musical numbers, as the film was not supposed to be a musical up until Ortega's involvement. Moreover, both Bale and David Moscow, who plays David Jacobs in the film, were not trained performers, which added to the anxiety of balancing the musical component with convincing performances that wouldn't betray this inexperience.

To make matters worse, the filming process for "Newsies" was a constant uphill battle, thanks to behind-the-scenes factors that led to budgetary constraints, scripts being constantly re-written, and the crew being forced to meet tight deadlines. Moreover, the death of the legendary Howard Ashman, who was supposed to work on the score alongside Menken, cast a shadow of grief that persisted. (Jack Feldman, who Menken had met at a musical theater workshop, ended up helping him out with the songwriting process instead.)

Nonetheless, "Newsies" has an unforgettable legacy today, and its flaws do not hold it back from being a pro-union anthem with an enduring core message.