My guess is as long as the show's making the producer's money and keeping the Nederlander's satisfied regarding audience capacity (most theatre owners have clauses where they can close a show if the audience attendance stays below a certain % over a time period), I can't imagine it would close anytime soon.
The movie will pick up the ticket sales. I'm sure it has at least 2 or 3 more years in it. Shows, especially high profile one's like Rent, don't just close without anyone knowing. There would be 1500 threads on here about it if it were closing, and I'm sure 1500 petitions to "save Rent" as well.
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
Honestly. When Rent does announce it's closing. I want to stay far away from the boards. Those crazy Rentheads are going to be posting like crazy, and may lead us sane posters to jump off a cliff.
And a rip will of course develop in the time space continuim...And the sky will turn black for 7 days...
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.~Office Space
I'm sure the break-even attendance percentage has got to be much lower than Chitty or Spamalot. It doesn't require stars, no big special effects or elaborate costumes, relatively low overhead. I mentioned to my partner when we saw Rent that they could probably run a very long time because of the low overhead.
I think it has at least a couple more years left in it. I think at one point, the attendance percentage was...painfully low. But the show is in good shape when I saw it a couple weeks back.
I've been looking at the grosses. When it opened, it went for 2 years NEVER dropping below 102% attendance. Then almost another year where it was consistently sold out, but never lower than 84%. Then almost 2 more years in the 75-101% range. It wasn't until after 6 years that it started dropping below the 75% range, but even then the attendance hasn't consistenly dropped below the 65% range. When it did, something would make attendance spike back close to the sellout range. I think that's pretty amazing for a show that's been running since June of '96.
You also got to think about the reunion show which isn't until next year, there's NO way that they would close the show before the reunion so you've got at least a year to get all the RENT you're heart can take!