The Greatest Showman quietly became a pretty significant hit last year that saw its music nominated for awards. Apparently, some Los Angeles area diners were recently reminded why by Hugh Jackman himself. It seems that on the 4th of July, Jackman was eating in a restaurant when a pair of songs from the movie musical began to be played, so Jackman and his party did what you'd expect them to do, they began to sing along, to the delight of the other assembled diners.
According to Page Six, the impromptu concert took place at Tao in Los Angeles where Hugh Jackman was sharing a meal with his Greatest Showman costar Keala Settle and Australian TV personality Gus Worland when the songs "This is Me" and "From Now On" were played inside the restaurant. Since musicals are all about people breaking into song randomly in the middle of public places, it's only fitting that Jackman and Settle broke out into song in the middle of a bunch of strangers.
If I'm being honest, this whole thing sounds a little suspicious. The fact that a pair of songs from The Greatest Showman began to play in a restaurant while two of the stars were eating there is awfully coincidental. One song happening to pop on the speaker system would be one thing, but with two playing, one wonders if some of the staff was trying to make something happen at that table. If so, it worked. Also, I wish I'd been there.
The Greatest Showman never found first place at the box office, but it remained in the top ten from the weekend it opened in December until March of this year, slowly collecting millions. It finished its box office run with a global take of $434 million, which is huge for a movie that reportedly cost less than $100 million to make. It's 2018 domestic take is enough to still make it actually the tenth highest grossing movie of this year.
The song "This is Me" was the breakout hit of the film. Performed by Keala Settle, the song was nominated for an Academy Award. While the song didn't win the award, the performance at the ceremony was by far the showstopping moment of the night.
It doesn't appear that anybody broke out their phone and got video of the restaurant performance which is truly a shame. I have to assume everybody was too stunned by what they were witnessing to think to record the moment.
