Wicked took decades to reach the screen because its creators first redirected the story from a film to a hit stage musical, then waited before adapting that musical for cinema. Producer Marc Platt says early screenplays felt incomplete; Stephen Schwartz’s suggestion to make it a musical gave the project its first successful shape. Later changes in the film’s plans and the decision to tell the story across two movies added further turns—not one single production delay.
It began as a film idea, but the first scripts did not satisfy its producer
Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, was published in 1995. It reimagines Oz through the witches’ stories. Marc Platt recalls encountering the book while at Universal and initially developing it as a film. But he felt the screenplays were missing an essential element. That is his account of the early drafts, not evidence that every script or studio decision failed for the same reason. NBCUniversal’s interview with Platt recounts that development.
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The project found its first successful form onstage
In the late 1990s, composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz asked Platt whether he had considered making the story a musical. Platt agreed: “It’s a story that wants to sing.” Maguire agreed to stage rights, and development moved toward the musical rather than directly toward a movie. Platt describes that pivot as the point at which the material’s form became clearer.
Turning the story into a stage musical was itself a substantial creative undertaking. Schwartz recalled that he, book writer Winnie Holzman, and Platt spent at least a year outlining and revising the complicated plot before writing in earnest. In a May 2024 interview, Schwartz estimated that work on the musical took about four years overall. Those are his recollections of the stage production’s development—not estimates of the film’s production time. Denver Center for the Performing Arts published his account.
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After May and June tryouts at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, Wicked opened at Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre in October 2003. Platt and David Stone produced it, with Schwartz and Holzman among the original creative team. Universal’s history of the property traces the novel, tryouts, and Broadway opening.
Platt says he waited for the musical to establish itself
Once the stage show succeeded, Platt says he was approached repeatedly about adapting it for film. He held back because the musical was thriving and he wanted enough distance from the stage version to approach the material as cinema. Platt described his journey with the property as “27 years.” That is his personal shorthand, not a precise, independently calculated count of the film’s development or production. His interview with NBCUniversal explains the reasoning.
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Public film plans changed before Jon M. Chu took over
The film did not move straight from Platt’s eventual willingness to adapt the musical to production. TheWrap reports that a feature version was being planned by 2011. In 2016, Universal announced a December 20, 2019 release date with Stephen Daldry attached to direct. By 2018 the project had been sidelined, and that date was assigned to Cats. These public milestones show that plans shifted, but they do not establish a complete internal studio chronology or explain every change. TheWrap’s account of the film’s development reports those dates.
Chu’s adaptation had to answer what a movie could add
When Jon M. Chu became involved, he worked through earlier scripts and the project’s history with Holzman, Schwartz, and Platt. The creative question was not simply how to reproduce the stage musical, but what film could do differently. Screenwriter Dana Fox said the team kept returning to: “what can you do in a movie that you can’t do in a musical?” Cinema could use close-ups and show parts of Elphaba’s life and the world of Oz that are impractical to stage in the same way. Fox and Holzman discussed the adaptation on PBS’s On Story.
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Why the story became two films
The two-film plan followed extended discussion, rather than being a simple consequence of the long wait. Holzman called it “a very hard decision and a very lengthy process of long discussions and thought.” The writers wanted to retain the musical’s score while exploring cinematic material beyond the stage version; Platt said dividing the adaptation gave its characters and storylines more room. The decision reflects the team’s chosen scope for the movies, not proof that a single production problem caused the delay. The PBS conversation covers the creative reasoning, and TheWrap reports on the development history.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The short version: a long creative evolution, not one long shoot
The novel arrived in 1995; the musical opened on Broadway in 2003; and the film adaptation went through changing public plans before Chu and the original creators shaped it for cinema. The elapsed time spans distinct stages of development: an initial film approach Platt found incomplete, a pivot to the stage, the musical’s years of story work and success, Platt’s choice to wait, and a film version designed to take advantage of the medium and tell the story across two movies. The available accounts support that layered explanation, not a claim that one delay or setback explains the entire journey.
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- Genre: Musical
- Number of Discs: 1
- Number of Tracks: 0
- Rating: PG
- Director: Jon M. Chu
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- Runtime: 138 minutes
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