Back in June, Universal Pictures finally announced the release date for the highly-anticipated adaptation of the award-winning musical ‘Wicked’. After many years of development, the the wonderful prequel/reimagining of the classic ‘Wizard of Oz’ story based on Gregory Maguire’s novel ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’ is finally defying gravity and getting off the ground. Although, not many details were available at the time of this announcement. We learned that ‘Billy Elliot’, ‘The Hours’, and ‘The Reader’ filmmaker Stephen Daldry is attached to direct and writer Winnie Holzman would reunite with composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz to work on the script, but other than that, not much is known right now. However, thanks to a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, we have new information about the movie’s soundtrack.
During an appearance at SDCC, Schwartz revealed that there will be at least four new songs added to the the cinematic adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical joining the hits like ‘Dancing Through Life’, ‘Popular’, and ‘Defying Gravity’. You can hear the legendary composer share this information in the video below courtesy of Instagram user KevenEleventh, but Broadway.com revealed that he went on to say that at least one of the four songs would be a number that was originally cut from the show.
Naturally, Schwartz made no mention of specific songs being reinserted back into this story, but fans of the musical may speculate that ‘Making Good’ could make a comeback for the big screen version. That song was originally Elphaba’s first song in the story as she boarded the train station in Munchkinland en route to Shiz University. But after two revisions, the song didn’t properly convey the feelings that the writers were looking for and was ultimately replaced by ’The Wizard and I’ as the first number for the lead.
What do you think about Stephen Schwartz writing new songs for ‘Wicked’? Are you excited to see the musical finally translated to the big screen? Sound off in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
