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Well, GC is quite right about box office being a highly flawed indicator of quality. Nevertheless, a complete bomb of a very famous work is, to me, an indicator of something amiss.
A very important indicator, to me, of a good musical ... is good music. I know a lot of people like the songs in Rent, but - like zapp - I found them utterly unmemorable. For an operetta piece of 98% musical content, the songs are even more important ... and thus Rent was even more disappointing.
Hmpfh, I had the feeling that the characters were loosely based on La Boheme, but that doesn't excuse how flimsy and hollow they seemed. The characters and stories, as written, were beyond thin. I don't think any of the performers other than Martin were up to the task of overcoming the limitations of the book. Martin may have been a stage actor to begin with, but he clearly honed his ability to handle screen acting by, um, doing screen acting.
Good songs might have saved this weaksauce mix of characters and plot. But they did not.
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