‘Wicked’ Movie Will Feature New Songs

Idina Menzel (left) and Jennifer Laura Thompson (right) in ‘Wicked’ (Photo: Joan Marcus/AP)

Of Broadway’s recent blockbuster musicals, has any seemed as tailor-made for a movie adaptation as the Tony Award-winning Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz (a revisionist prequel to 1939’s classic The Wizard of Oz)? We now know the wait for a big-screen version won’t be endless, as wheels are turning for a 2019 release — and when a Wicked movie finally does arrive, it apparently will include some new tunes.

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As reported by Playbill at Comic-Con’s “Behind the Music Panel” yesterday, Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz revealed that the film will add four songs, including three originals and one that was dropped from the Broadway production. That’s the first piece of truly exciting news we’ve heard about the still-shrouded-in-mystery project, which will be written by Winnie Holzman (who wrote the musical’s book, based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel) and directed by The Hours and The Reader director Stephen Daldry.

Given Schwartz’s disclosure that they’ve only been working on Wicked’s movie for four days, it’s no surprise that the lead roles of Elphaba (a.k.a., the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (the snooty Good Witch of the North) have yet to be cast. However, it’s likely they won’t be rehiring original leads Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth — although given the former’s vocal success with 2013’s Frozen, Schwartz and Co. might not want to simply let her go [yes, I couldn’t resist].

Wicked is scheduled to fly into theaters courtesy of Universal Pictures on Dec. 20, 2019.

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