Stephen Daldry-directed ‘Wicked’ film could land in 2016, producer says

Something “Wicked” this way comes — and it could arrive in theaters as early as next year.

Development is underway on a big-screen adaptation of “Wicked,” the popular stage musical taking a revisionist approach to “The Wizard of Oz,” according to film and theater producer Marc Platt.

Platt recently told Film Divider that 2016 is “a loose goal” but also hedged, “the bar is very high for the creators of ‘Wicked.’ Our show is still so strong everywhere … Audiences enjoy that show so much that we are intending to move forward on the movie but aren’t going to do so until we’re satisfied in the material we have as a screenplay, and that the film will be every bit as satisfying as what we have on the stage.”

Platt added that filmmaker Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot,” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”) is still onboard to direct (he’s been attached to the film for some time), from a screenplay by Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for the stage version of “Wicked” and created the ABC series “My So-Called Life.”

Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” the stage version of “Wicked” opened in New York in 2003, starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth as Elphaba and Glinda, two girls who grow up to be witches with very different temperaments.

Although it received some bad reviews when it debuted, the show has become one of the highest-grossing Broadway musicals of all time, taking in $894 million to date. It has also spawned national tours and several overseas productions.

Universal Pictures, which holds the rights to “Wicked,” did not immediately comment on Platt’s remarks.

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