02 February 2021
Newsdesk
Jon M. Chu has been tapped to direct the big-screen adaptation of smash-hit Broadway musical Wicked.
The Crazy Rich Asians director has signed up to replace Billy Elliot filmmaker Stephen Daldry, who departed the project, which has been in development for more than decade, in October due to scheduling conflicts, according to Deadline.
Chu, who recently made upcoming movie musical In the Heights, tweeted some of the lyrics to Defying Gravity, the show's signature song, besides a screengrab of the Deadline article and expressed his excitement at the news in a lengthy note.
"When I saw Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's Wicked over 15 years ago as it was being workshopped in San Francisco I couldn't unsee it," he wrote. "So to think that I have been invited to bring this timeless story to the biggest screens all around the world for people to experience with their family, best friends and total strangers... of all walks of life, ages, shapes and colors is like I've been invited to Oz by the Wizard himself."
He went on to thank Schwartz, Holzman, producer Marc Platt and bosses at Universal Pictures for giving him the opportunity to tell the story of friends-turned-enemies Elphaba and Glinda, who become the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch, respectively.
"I will protect this (story) vigorously and hopefully bring a few new surprises along the way. So... who wants to be Elphaba and Glinda," he teased.
Schwartz and Holzmann, who wrote the original show, are writing the screenplay, and the movie is expected to feature at least two new songs alongside hits such as Popular and For Good.
It's not yet known when the movie will be released - Universal once set a release date of December 2019 but that slot was subsequently given to its other stage musical adaptation, Cats, and a new date of December 2021 was announced before the Covid-19 pandemic forced Universal to rejuggle its schedule.
Based on a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked, the prequel to The Wizard of Oz, premiered on Broadway in 2003 and is the fifth longest-running musical of all time.
