Les Mis has a bunch of well-known songs--"One Day More," "Bring Him Home," "Do You Hear The People Sing?" "On My Own," "Master of the House,""Turning," Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," "Who Am I?" "I Dreamed a Dream," and others (there are nearly 50 musical numbers in all)--so it's intriguing that the trailer only uses one song ("I Dreamed a Dream"). And more than that, why choose that song?
(Spoilers follow, if you somehow don't know the plot of Les Mis already.)
While Fantine, who sings "I Dreamed a Dream," is an important character to the plot (Valjean adopting Cosette after her mother dies sets much of the story in motion), she dies less than a third of the way into the story. Besides that, while Hathaway is a star, she's hardly the biggest name in this cast; Jackman and Crowe are bigger stars, and they have much larger roles, too.
I don't think Hathaway has a particularly impressive voice, either. Compare the trailer to this video of stage actress Lea Salonga singing the same song:
So, why choose this song? I think the choice has relatively little to do with the Les Mis movie itself. Instead, they used "I Dreamed a Dream" because of another recent performance:
That's right, "I Dreamed a Dream" is the song Susan Boyle sang in her first audition on Britain's Got Talent. It's probably a safe bet that more people know the song from there than from Les Mis, and if they hear it in the trailer, it will bring up memories of Boyle's performance and create an emotional connection many people don't have to a 3+ hour stage musical about the French Revolution.
It's a smart move from a marketing standpoint, even if it doesn't make the most sense in terms of the movie/musical itself.
It's a smart move from a marketing standpoint, even if it doesn't make the most sense in terms of the movie/musical itself.
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