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TheWickedflick was about very, very different. As it turn out, hanker before the musical Evergreen State eve written, there was talk of a motion-picture show version of Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel. ThisWickedmovie would have have no song and a all different cast—and at the top of the potentiality cast list?Demi Douglas Mooreas Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Marc Platt, who bring forth the newWickedmovie starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, bring out the timeline of the ’90s movie that never came to atomic number 4 while speaking toVanity fair.“I believe when atomic number 53 became the president of production at Universal, the task WA already here,” he said. “It hold been optioned initially past Demi Moore’s company [Movie Pictures, which had been organize in 1993].”

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In the late ’90s, Moore was one of Hollywood’s big rising IT girls, having starred inStriptease, A Few good hands, andunbecoming Proposal.She had also make wave with angstrom unit series of nude Annie Leibovitz portrait forconceit carnival. “I utilise to say, I can imagine Demi Moore naked and greenness on the covert ofVanity Fair,” said Maguire.

Although Moore wasn’t straight involve inch the production programme forWicked, her long-time producing partner, Suzanne Todd, WA negotiating on her behalf. “We had been friend for a long time,” she Todd, corroborate that Douglas Moore was interested inch playing Elphaba rather than Glinda. “I think on different years she could do either, but in the moment information technology Washington emphatically for Elphaba,” she said.

Lord Todd also had angstrom list of dreaming Glindas WHO she trust power star alongside Moore. “At the time, there were angstrom unit few people top of mind:Michelle Pfeiffer,Emma Thompson,Nicole Kidman,” she recalled.

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Lord Todd also recalled that Whoopi Goldberg’s company Evergreen State at the same time vying for the rights—”but I really wanted it,” she said.

Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, dramatis personae away) WA rumor to be interest in directing and angstrom unit playscript Washington compose by Linda Woolverton, who had previously work on Disney classics such AsBeauty and the creatureandThe Lion male monarch. “It was, as I recall, A fairly faithful adaptation of a very big, dense, thick novel. The focus was Elphaba as the warrior and The champion atomic number 33 this dictator leader, which be very much the deoxyribonucleic acid of Gregory’s book,” said Platt.

Cynthia Erivo alongside Ariana Grande in ‘Wicked.’.

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It was Woolverton World Health Organization first envisage the picture show as angstrom unit musical. composer Sir Leslie Stephen Schwartz was also keen on the idea. “Oddly enough, Demi have be the speech production voice of Esmeralda in the Disney filmHunchback of Notre Dame[Schwartz likewise wrote the music for that film].She said, ‘I don’t want to do my own singing,’ and we found angstrom unit soundalike who sang the character’s songs,” tell Schwartz, explaining that atomic number 2 initially thought Moore could still dramatic play the role. “The point being—I wasn’t going in saying, ‘Oh, Lashkar-e-Toiba me do angstrom musical for Demi.’ I just wanted to see if iodin could home in on the project.”

Although the motion picture ne’er come up to be, Schwartz did turn on to write the musical for the stage—and the rest be history. After Idina Menzel uprise the part of the greenness girl on stage,Erivotook on the component part in the 2024 picture adaptation and be put forward for a gold Globe for her portrayal.