Wicked the Musical is Headed to the Big Screen

The smash Broadway hit musical Wicked, a Wizard of Oz prequel of sorts, based on the fantastic novel by Gregory McGuire is headed to the big screen!   The creative team behind the stage version are in talks with several heavy hitters including JJ Abrams (“Lost” and “Star Trek”), James Mangold (“3:10 to Yuma” “Walk the Line” and the iffy “Knight and Day”) Rob Marshall (Oscar winner for “Chicago”) and best of all (please, please, please) Glee creator Ryan Murphy.  At least three of these directors are out Gay men.

If Murphy is picked, hell if any of them are picked, I think Glee has demonstrated that Lea Michele would be an amazing choice to take over the role of Elphaba the witch of the title adjective whose story the musical is.  She is not only a singer of emormous gifts, and a great actress, but a dead ringer for the now too old to pull off the role Idina Menzel who has been playing Lea’s mother on Glee.  I have no clue who could possibly fill the giant and yet tiny shoes of  Kristen Chenoweth in the role of the delightfully self absorbed good witch Glinda (Galinda), hell can we just let her pretend to be 18?

Wicked’s stage runs have generated over 2 billion (yes I said BILLION) in grosses worldwide so this was inevitable, and the success in the last decade of screen adaptations of Chicago, Hairspray, Dreamgirls and Mama Mia make the journey for Elphaba and Glinda to the big screen a fairly easy bet for studios  (reportedly Universal) and producers.

I can’t wait!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under Culture & Style, Images, Movies, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.