Let's embark on the Yellow Brick Road to explore the magical alternate universe of the "Wicked" movie that almost was. While the current "Wicked: For Good" starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, and more is finally gracing the big screens, there was a very different version that teetered on the horizon in the mid-1990s. This version would have been a closer adaptation of the original source material, Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West."
In fact, Marc Platt, the producer of both the film and Broadway version of "Wicked," revealed to Vanity Fair last year that a movie adaptation was already in the works at Universal Pictures when he joined the company in 1996. "I'm going to try and get the timeline right if I can remember, but I believe when I became the president of production at Universal, the project was already here," he said. "It had been optioned initially by Demi Moore's company."
According to author Maguire, his book had been the center of a bidding war among several actors eager to bring it to the big screen. Whoopi Goldberg had even "expressed an interest in the first six months," he told Vanity Fair. But when he heard that Moore wanted to make the movie, Maguire was quick to join in. Referencing Moore's iconic 1991 Annie Leibovitz photoshoot, Maguire quipped, "I used to say, I can imagine Demi Moore naked and green on the cover of Vanity Fair."
Moore's company, Moving Pictures, secured the rights, and Moore was interested in playing one of the lead roles. Her producing partner Suzanne Todd confirmed, "I think on different days she could do either," referring to Moore's ability to play either Elphaba or Glinda. "But in that moment, it was definitely for Elphaba." While they never reached a final decision on casting Glinda, Todd said they had several actresses "top of mind," including Nicole Kidman. Additionally, there was a "rumble for a minute" that Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis was interested in joining the project, although Todd noted she never spoke to him directly about it.
Over the next few years, multiple screenwriters attempted to craft a script for a non-musical adaptation from the book. Platt and Maguire recalled that the strongest version came from Linda Woolverton, who had written 1991's "Beauty and the Beast," 1994's "The Lion King," and 1998's "Mulan." It was apparently Woolverton who suggested adding songs into the film. "Linda is the one who really wanted to do a musical," Todd said. "The idea came from her work at Disney, where she had also worked on the musicals of those animated films."
Interestingly, Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz—who ultimately wrote the music and lyrics for the stage version—saw the potential for a musical himself and brought the idea to Platt. And as they say, the rest is history.
