The cast of Wicked said it thinks a film adaptation of the musical will be “absolutely brilliant” and “amazing.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in February, Universal chairman Kevin Fogelson said the studio was planning to bring Wicked to the big screen in the near future. Universal is majority owner of the Broadway musical.
“ Wicked has been an enormous win for this company,” Fogelson said. “The way it works, we should be in agreement together on when the right time to do this is. But I will tell you I believe that we are collectively moving toward Wicked coming to the screen sooner rather than later.”
With that in the mind, the cast of Wicked , which is based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same, told Digital Spy they believe the musical will work as a film .
Nikki Davis-Jones, who plays Elphaba — the Wicked Witch of the West — in the show’s UK and Ireland tour, explained that the original plan was for the novel to be adapted into a film. A friend of composer Stephen Schwartz read the book and told him about the proposed movie version.
“[Schwartz] wrote to [Universal] and said, ‘Hang on, hang on, what about this musical? You can’t have inner-monologue, voiceover type things in, so it’s better that we have songs.’ And they went for it,” Davis-Jones said.
“I think a movie is so exciting – and obviously because of the Les Mis and Mamma Mia! films they work,” she added. Universal distributed both films, with Les Miserables being the first musical nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award since 2002’s Chicago.
“I think it’ll be absolutely brilliant, and I’m glad they did it this way round and not the other way round,” Davis-Jones said.
Emily Tierney, who plays Glinda the Good Witch , agreed.
“You get some musicals that people talk about turning into a film and you can’t really work out how they’re going to do it,” Tierney said.
“With Wicked , the way it’s written and the structure of the show and the depth of the characters and the exploration of different characters, and the fact that so much happens in so many different places – it’s not all set in one place, it’s all over the Land of Oz,” she continued. “I think it will translate really, really well into film.”
Tierney added, “I can’t wait to see if it does happens and see what they do with it. I think it will be amazing.”
Liam Doyle, who plays Fiyero, had mixed feelings about a film version.
“It’d be great, because the story of Wicked is amazing. It’d be great for people who can’t go to the theatre and see it to see it,” he said. “But I also think it’s such a great theatre show and I kind of don’t want it.”
Doyle added, “I think the film is a good idea, definitely, but I think they’ve got to keep the theatre show. That’s the one for me. Watching it happening live in front of you, nothing else can compare to that.”
