Ruined FOREVER/Theater


 * Cirque Du Soleil has had a lot of this since 2007, but especially after Criss Angel Believe initially bombed with critics and audiences (though it's since had a Retool and continues to run) and ZAIA had trouble selling tickets in Macau. After two of their 2010 productions (Banana Shpeel and Viva Elvis) had bad press in previews -- the former wound up closing in New York two months sooner than planned, and the latter will close at the end of 2012 (their first Las Vegas show to do so) -- the fandom and even media commentators began speculating the end for a once-wonderful company is nigh. It Got Worse with the announcement of Michael Jackson-themed shows, not only for being more Jukebox Musical variants but for coming closely on the heels of their subject's death (making it look like a cash-grab). In response to that uproar, the online fan newsletter Fascination had an excellent column by its editor pointing out that Cirque fans have been making Ruined FOREVER claims as far back as 1990 and their fourth show, Nouvelle Experience, as it was a more theatrical show than the tours that had preceded it.
 * Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, killed a lot of the fans' love for the original show. He alienated them even further by blaming the financial and critical failure of it entirely on the people who've been buying tickets to Phantom for twenty years.
 * Hell, there's even a Facebook group called "Love Should Die."
 * Pretty much anytime a major musical is made into a movie, there is some set of fans who declares the show Ruined FOREVER.
 * The (well-substantiated) rumour that Taylor Swift had been cast as Eponine in the upcoming film version of Les Miserables provoked an unanimous outcry from the fanbase. Then the incredibly sneaky Cameron Mackintosh announced that the role would instead be played by West End and 25th Anniversary Concert veteran Samantha Barks, and this trope was summarily turned upside down and shaken with prejudice as said fanbase - including names like Lea Salonga, Frances Ruffelle, and Rebecca Caine - dropped to their knees with an audible thump and thanked the deity/ies of their choice.