Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg almost involved in completely different ‘evil’ movies

The Wicked movie was almost completely different. In fact, long before this musical was written, there was talk of a film adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel. This Wicked movie was supposed to have no songs and a completely different cast — and at the top of the cast list? Demi Moore plays Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Marc Platt, who produced the new Wicked movie starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, revealed the timeline of the ’90s movie that never happened in an interview with Vanity Fair. “When I became head of production at Universal, I think this project was already underway. It was originally optioned by Demi Moore’s company (Movie Pictures, founded in 1993).” he said.

In the late ’90s, Moore was one of Hollywood’s hottest It girls, appearing in Striptease, A Few Good Men, and A Lewd Proposal. She also made headlines for a series of nude portraits of Annie Leibovitz published in Vanity Fair magazine. “I’ve always said that I can picture Demi Moore naked and green on the cover of Vanity Fair,” Maguire said.

Moore was not directly involved in planning the production of Wicked, but her longtime producing partner Suzanne Todd negotiated on her behalf. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” Todd admitted, admitting that Moore was interested in playing Elphaba rather than Glinda. “I think she can do both depending on the day, but right now it was definitely for Elphaba,” she said.

Todd also had a list of dream Glindas he would like to see Moore co-star with. “I had a few people in mind at the time: Michelle Pfeiffer, Emma Thompson, Nicole Kidman,” she recalls.

Todd also recalled that Whoopi Goldberg’s company was fighting for the rights at the same time, “but I really wanted it,” she said.

Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) is rumored to be interested in directing the film, and his previous screenplay includes Disney classics Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Written by Linda Woolverton. “From what I remember, it was a fairly faithful adaptation of a very large, dense, thick novel. The focus was on Elphaba as a warrior and the wizard as this authoritarian leader. , that’s really the DNA of Gregory’s book,” Pratt said.

Woolverton was the first to imagine the film as a musical. Composer Stephen Schwartz was also keen on the idea. “Oddly enough, Demi was the voice of Esmeralda in the Disney film ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (Schwartz also wrote the music for that film). She said, ‘I don’t want to sing it myself.’ “We found a lookalike to sing the character’s songs,” Schwartz said, explaining that he initially thought Moore could still play the role. They say, “Oh, let me do a musical for Demi.” I just wanted to see if I could focus on the project. ”

Although the film never materialized, Schwartz went on to write musicals for the stage, and the rest is history. After Idina Menzel originated the role of the Green Girl on stage, Erivo accepted the role in the 2024 film adaptation and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance.