The Netflix original series Julie And The Phantoms might be Kenny Ortega’s latest musical comedy, but it’s originally based on the Brazilian series Julie e os Fantasmas. Julie And The Phantoms follows teenage musical prodigy Julie as she meets ghost musicians Alex, Luke and Reggie. Together they discover that the ghosts become visible to living people – but only if they’re performing with Julie. After creating their band Julie And The Phantoms, Julie learns to accept the loss of her mother while the Phantoms learn to cope with their own untimely deaths.
Although Julie And The Phantoms is based on Julie e os Fantasmas, executive-producer and director Kenny Ortega took major creative liberties with the source material. Both shows revolve around Julie and her ghost band, but they don’t have much in common beyond that. Julie e os Fantasmas, which aired from 2011-2012 in Brazil, revolved around Julie working through normal adolescent problems such as self-esteem and teenage romance with the help of the ghosts. Julie e os Fantasmas was marketed as Brazil’s musical response to the popular Disney Channel show Hannah Montana.
The Netflix series Julie And The Phantoms has the same basic premise as Julie e os Fantasmas, but Ortega and showrunner Dan Cross decided to focus the series more on the mythology surrounding the ghosts and exploring Julie’s grief. Instead of the music videos sprinkled throughout Julie e os Fantasmas, Julie And The Phantoms is full of original songs with Ortega’s signature slickly-choreographed dance numbers. Here are all of the major differences between Julie e os Fantasmas and Julie And The Phantoms.
Julie’s Mom Isn’t Dead In The Original Show
The main character arc in Julie And The Phantoms is Julie, played by newcomer Madison Reyes, learning to accept her mother’s death and making music again. Julie’s emotional journey grounds Julie And The Phantoms when it leans too far into goofy ghosts antics, and ultimately makes the show better. However, Julie’s mom never dies in Julie e os Fantasmas. Instead, Julie e os Fantasmas starts with Julie and her family moving into a new house, and the ghosts mostly help her with mundane teenage problems such as self-esteem and her unrequited crush on Nicholas. While Julie And The Phantoms was able to bring the supernatural premise down to Earth by centering the show around Julie’s grief, Julie e os Fantasmas doesn’t have the same emotional center.
Apolo 81 vs. Sunset Curve
Some of the changes Netflix made to Julie And The Phantoms updated the show for a modern audience. Julie e os Fantasmas premiered in 2011, and the titular ghost band was called Apolo 81. Unlike Sunset Curve, who died in 1995 due to contaminated hot dogs, the members of Apolo 81 died in the 1980s under mysterious circumstances. While the Apolo 81 ghosts were released from an abandoned vinyl record, the Sunset Curve ghosts were released from a demo CD that Julie finds in her mother’s old music studio.
The ghosts also have their own major arc in Julie And The Phantoms, where they accidentally sell their souls to Caleb Covington and try to evade his clutches by completing their unfinished business. In Julie e os Fantasmas, the ghosts just want to help Julie and play music. The changes made in Julie And The Phantoms not only modernize the premise, they also give Alex, Luke, and Reggie well-developed character arcs and enrich the mythology of the show.
Nicholas Had A Secret
Nicholas is a character in both Julie And The Phantoms and Julie e os Fantasmas, and is a popular boy that Julie has a crush on. In both shows, Nick is dating her rival – the mean girl Thalita in the Brazilian version, and ex-friend Carrie in the Netflix series. While Nick doesn’t get much character development in Julie And The Phantoms until the major cliffhanger in the last episode, he is much more prominent in Julie e os Fantasmas. Julie finds out that Nicholas has been hiding a secret from everyone: he’s secretly a huge nerd, but can’t be himself because of his popularity. Unfortunately, Nick is a far less developed character in the Netflix show. Nick in Julie And The Phantoms is still a popular boy, but he’s not afraid to be himself and eventually falls for Julie, showing up at her house in the finale with flowers in an attempt to woo her.
The Hollywood Ghost Club vs. The Spectral Police
Julie And The Phantoms built out the ghostly underbelly of Los Angeles during its nine episodes. Most prominent is the Hollywood Ghost Club, a nightclub owned by malevolent ghost and former magician Caleb Covington. The Hollywood Ghost Club is staffed by ghosts who have sold their souls to Caleb, and puts on elaborate shows for living people who have paid a lot of money for a sneak peek at the afterlife. Julie And The Phantoms hints at a bigger ghost society existing alongside the living in Los Angeles, which will hopefully be expanded on in Julie And The Phantoms season 2, and the Hollywood Ghost Club is the biggest example.
In Julie e os Fantasmas, the biggest ghost institution is the Spectral Police. Caleb Covington and the Hollywood Ghost Club don’t exist in the Brazilian show, and were brand new additions in the Netflix series. Instead, the Spectral Police kept an eye on the ghostly hijinks in Julie e os Fantasmas and only occasionally intervened. Instead of having a main villain like Caleb, the only villains in Julie e os Fantasmas were teenage ones, such as mean girls or Julie’s own self-esteem.
Julie e os Fantasmas Wasn’t About Death
The biggest change with the Netflix version of Julie And The Phantoms was centering the show around accepting death and the healing power of love. By using Julie’s journey to accept her mother’s death as the show’s emotional center, Julie And The Phantoms explored working through grief with music, and the Phantoms’ journey to accept their own untimely deaths. The tone of Julie e os Fantasmas was very different, and much more like a serialized Disney Channel show that was modeled after Hannah Montana. Instead of meditating on the effects of grief, the Brazilian series was a fairly typical teen comedy, making Julie e os Fantasmas a very different show than Julie And The Phantoms.
While Julie And The Phantoms might be based on the Brazilian show, Kenny Ortega and Dan Cross made several big changes from the Netflix series. From updating the show for a modern audience with Sunset Curve to basing the series around Julie’s emotional arc, Julie And The Phantoms is a more emotional and touching series than its Brazilian predecessor. While both shows follow Julie’s adventures with the support of her ghostly boy band, the Netflix series turns the goofy premise into a grounded and moving series about the power of love with Julie And The Phantoms.
