Wicked Heading to the Big Screen
According to Mike Fleming over at Dateline.com, Universal Pictures is looking to transfer Broadway's Wicked to the big screen -- making it one of many Oz-related projects in development. JJ Abrams is among the dirctors being talked to.
Details Fleming, "I'm told the musical's producer Marc Platt, book writer Winnie Holzman and songwriter Stephen Schwartz have begun meeting with filmmakers. Insiders confirm that JJ Abrams, James Mangold, Ryan Murphy and Rob Marshall are among the directors who've met or otherwise thrown their hat in the ring. More meetings will take place when the musical's authors come to town in the fall.
"...Wicked, a Wizard of Oz prequel, is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and focuses on the early relationship between Glinda the Good and Elphaba, a green-skinned beauty before she ended up flying on a broomstick. Wicked began as a movie development project with Platt and Universal, before they changed course and took it to the stage first. It was an immediate sensation, quickly recouping its $14 million capitalization in 2004 and becoming one of the biggest grossing tuners of all time, with the Broadway show and eight touring companies... The musical shows no signs of winding down, the reason its architects haven't been in a rush to mount a movie--until now."
A major part of the reason for the rush - as is the case with most of the Oz films being developed, is the $1 billion gross of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Apparently the fairy tale floodgates have opened.
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