Deadline’s Learn the Screenplay sequence spotlighting the scripts behind awards season’s most talked-about motion pictures continues with Depraved, Common’s blockbuster musical film from director Jon M. Chu. Tailored from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Depraved: The Life and Occasions of the Depraved Witch of the West — in regards to the untold tales of the witches of Oz, set within the years earlier than Dorothy dropped in by way of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Fantastic Wizard of Oz — the screenplay was penned by authentic Broadway musical guide author Winnie Holzman and Cruella co-scribe Dana Fox.
In 2003, Depraved debuted on Broadway, starring Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, incomes 10 Tony nominations together with Finest Musical and three wins. The musical has earned about $6 billion worldwide and has change into a runaway success in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia and the UK.
The movie, which opened November 22 to a slew of data after its personal lengthy journey to the display, already has set the mark for the highest-grossing film primarily based on a Broadway musical in home field workplace historical past, grossing $335.5 million so far within the U.S. and Canada. Worldwide, it’s at the moment at $459 million, the second largest all time after Mamma Mia!, and is nonetheless going robust.
Depraved is the primary of two deliberate film chapters that follows the origin story of the witches of Oz: Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, a younger lady misunderstood due to her inexperienced pores and skin who has but to find her true energy, and Ariana Grande as Glinda, a preferred younger lady gilded by privilege on a journey of self-discovery.
The 2 meet as college students at Shiz College within the fantastical Land of Ozand forge an unlikely however profound friendship. Following an encounter with the Fantastic Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives take very totally different paths. Their extraordinary adventures in Ozwill in the end see them fulfill their destinies as Glinda the Good and the Depraved Witch of the West.
On the floor, Depraved is the origin story of how Elphaba grew to become the Depraved Witch and Galinda grew to become Glinda the Good. However beneath is a narrative that swims in darker waters and mines deeper truths. Depraved can also be a present in regards to the quiet, insidious rise of a fascist motion that seeks to demonize the clever, talking Animals of Oz, blame them for all the pieces fallacious in society, and destroy them by (actually) taking away their voices.
The movie additionally stars Michelle Yeoh as Shiz College’s headmistress Madame Morrible; Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero; Ethan Slater as Boq; Marissa Bode in her feature-film debut as Nessarose, Elphaba’s favored sister; and Jeff Goldblum because the Wizard.
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To deliver the musical to the large display, producer Marc Platt reunited with Holzman and authentic composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz. “For years, Winnie and I might say, ‘For the film, we should always do that…’,” Schwartz says. “It’s been thrilling us for a very long time. The story of Depraved — as brilliantly imagined by Gregory Maguire after which as realized by Winnie and myself and our present collaborators — has spoken to individuals who have made it their very own. Every of our characters is holding a secret from the world — typically even a secret from themselves. That’s what the present is about: revealing what’s beneath the floor.”
This movie adaptation, Holzman says, “was an unimaginable alternative for Stephen and I to revisit this world. Coming again into it, we realized that there have been elements of the story that we wished to discover extra deeply, and with extra nuance. Once we bought the go-ahead for 2 movies, we knew we’d have the power to maintain all the pieces we wished to maintain, and nonetheless increase sure key moments. We’re telling the identical story, whereas permitting it to blossom into one thing new.”
That story got here together with assist from Fox, who co-wrote Disney’s Cruella with Emma Stone, The Misplaced Metropolis with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, in addition to the rom-coms What Occurs in Vegas and The Marriage ceremony Date. She’s subsequent up writing a world heist comedy she conceived with Simon Kinberg, that may star Ryan Reynolds; Netflix simply picked it up in a seven-figure deal beating out eight bidders.
Within the meantime, take a look at the Depraved script under.