As musical adaptations go, there are few films more anticipated than Stephen Daldry's silver screen take on the Broadway and West End juggernaut Wicked, which Universal has dated for a December 2019 release.
Daldry, the Oscar-nominated director of Billy Elliot, currently has his hands full directing and executive producing Netflix's lavish new royal drama The Crown—which is already deep in production on season two, although the first has yet to premiere.
Writer Winnie Holzman, who wrote the original Broadway musical, is currently working on the script for the adaptation, Daldry told Newsweek at a BAFTA preview screening of The Crown Wednesday. Holzman is reuniting on the project with the musical's composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz.
Daldry says he is scheduled to film the movie in 2018 but there has been no talk as yet about who will play the film's leads, the unlikely friends Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba. "We haven't done casting yet... but it'll be great," the director promises.
In a Q&A earlier in the evening, following a screening of the first two episodes of Queen Elizabeth drama The Crown, Daldry had effusive praise for the show's lead actor Claire Foy, who plays the British monarch. "[She has] become the leading actress of her generation," said Daldry. "We are all in awe of Claire Foy."
Foy has also earned critical acclaim for her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in BBC drama Wolf Hall and for playing the lead in Charles Dickens adaptation Little Dorrit in 2008.
In July, composer Schwartz revealed the Wicked film would include four new songs in addition to favorites from the musical, such as "Defying Gravity."
Wicked is based on author Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a revisionist take on Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of Oz.
The roles of Elphaba and Glinda were originated by U.S. actors Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway in 2003. The original production has grossed more than $1 billion in the U.S. while Wicked 's total haul for its various global iterations stands at $4 billion.
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