Stephen Daldry out as director of development hell-bound "Wicked"

Link to proof that Daldry is known for molesting or just fuck off. And don't waste our time with tired old rumors involving Jamie Bell.

His exit is just as well. I don't imagine he's well suited to a mega- musical based on his other work. And if there's a rush to get Wicked into production we may have another CATS on our hands.

I'm available!!

I'm still available to play Elphaba! I know every line and have already made notes on my characterisation.

Simple Answer:

ALL BLACK CAST IS THE ONLY JUSTICE!!!!!!!!!!!

Trans Green Women threw the first bricks at Stonewall!

Lea can use the gas from her ass to complete the flying scene in "Defying Gravity"!

They are not shooting until the end of next year, so they should get some sucker.

"Wicked" has a TERRIBLE and endless libretto. The story rambles all over like crazy!

I don't see how this very lucky show has been so popular, I guess it's just the unending supply of tween girls with enough parental income to keep going to see it.

A filmed version for a general public audience of adults will fail hard. The material just isn't any good.

R8 = idiot.

R9 Not really, I tried to read the book it was based on and found it incredibly unfocused and rambly. The show reflects that.

I really enjoyed the book and its sequels. Those are what I would prefer to see adapted, perhaps as miniseries, rather than the musical.

^ Really? Jesus the politics of Oz bored the shit out of me.

Will Ben Platt be playing Elphaba or Galinda?

Ben will direct! My boy is a triple threat!

[quote] Link to proof that Daldry is known for molesting or just fuck off. And don't waste our time with tired old rumors involving Jamie Bell.

Evan Rachel Wood has alluded to this many times in the past when she was still married to him and recently with the Netflix histeria over that stupid French film she has doubled down on it.

I guess you know more than her about it.

They have been trying to get this movie made for 15 years. With the Cats bomb, and now Covid, it will never be made.

Hey, R4, if I could have just a moment of your time, we were all wondering if you could go suck an automobile tailpipe. We'd appreciate it.

Seems strange to me that this can't seem to get it together for a movie version to be made - it is way more commercially viable than pretty much every other musical (aside from Mama Mia) to be done as a film. With a decent budget for some good special effects it could be amazing.

There are obsessives on DL that call people pedophiles and mark any child star as a victim of abuse. It’s actually really sick. It’s like they want them to have been abused. I actually think they are mentally ill.

There are obsessives on DL that call people pedophiles and mark any child star as a victim of abuse. It’s actually really sick. It’s like they want them to have been abused. I actually think they are mentally ill.

R15 So link to where she makes these comments.

R19 They absolutely get off on it. It's like the QAnon people. They're all just a bit too interested in the details.

If this ever gets made it's going to bomb overseas, where The Wizard of Oz character are relatively unknown...And so is this musical. This was also one of the reasons Oz the Great and Powerful flopped so majestically.

*characters

I think they get off on it too! Please make them go away! Daldry seems lovely and I always thought their relationship was very respectful towards each other. Really get therapy please!

Don't worry, R23. It's never getting made.

But if it does get made, Ariana Grande would murder Lea Michele with her bare hands on Instagram Live if it meant she could play Elphaba.

It has been pretty much tradition not to make a film of a Broadway show during its first run and compete with it, so in someways it was a victim of its own success.

The movie will pull into relief how HORRIBLE the show actually is.

[quote] So link to where she makes these comments.

Follow her on Instagram, she's posting them in her stories. She specifically said Jamie Bell has been abused, didn't say the name of the abuser but I guess we can surmise who she was talking about. She's going berserk about these things since Cuties came out. She even posted something about not being a right winger and calling out people like many here who conflate talking about sexual abuse in the industry with Q-anon.

Do you think that Ben is getting his father to hold off production until Beanie can get slender enough for a part?

[quote] Don't worry, [R23]. It's never getting made.

This show will totally be made sooner than you think. I hate musicals so couldn't care less about this, but I know people involved with it and it will materialize for better or worse, can't judge it, never saw it never will.

R31 I agree there’s to much money at stake not to make it even if it fails.

R29 So your only source is something which will have self-deleted by now? How lucky for you.

But hey, a celebrity saying her ex was abused as a child, someone somewhere will have written an article or two on that, right? So...where is it?

Nobody should be accused like this with no tea that just made up in some basement dweller loser’s mind.

Should have been FFd by now.

Dude, are you familiar with this tool called google? I'm not your butler, google it or search on twitter, this is 2020 not 1991. People talked about it and its all there for you to see.

Its no my fault you're tech illiterate and lazy.

Why do all the gay directors get called pedophiles by idiots? It makes me question the lynchmob against Bryan Singer because those stories started on forums filled with holier than thou gay gossip mongers too.

R35 You made a claim, it's up to you to back it up and provide sources. The only people who have a problem with doing so are the people making shit up

"People talked about it" doesn't constitute proof of anything. That's no better than Trump with his "that's what I hear."

BTW, being abused is not the same thing as being sexually abused. Children can be physically or emotionally abused without any sexual element. And Bell was adopted by Daldry after Billy Elliott, so any abuse could have been done by Bell's parents.

Evan Rachel Wood is another Rose McGowan. She’s a nut job that is always hinting about exposing abusers yet never goes through with it.

Actually Rose is better because she actually exposes shit. Even is all talk. Wasn’t she claiming that ALL male child actors have been molested? Sure Jan.

^ Yes, she did. In that shit documentary about child actors. She talks lots, but zero receipts.

Get lost. She made a claim, the end. If you have issues with it, take it with her, this is a gossip site, if you dislike what people say, go somewhere else. No one owes you anything.

R41 Actually, no, [bold]you[/bold] claim she made a claim. And you've provided nothing to back up this claim other than a vague reference to her IG stories. Again, seems to me if she had said Jamie Bell was assaulted as a child, that would've been news.

Again, someone needs to learn how to google things. Let's leave the senile granny at that.

R43 So when nothing's found you can say "oh you must not have searched for the right terms"?

You don't actually think you're fooling anyone, do you?

Last time I'll waste time with this. This is a gossip site, asking proof of anything is useless, no one owes you shit, so either partake in the gossip or go somewhere else. That said, I do follow her on Instagram and during this Cuties madness she has posted stories many times saying the father of her son was abused. I saw it twice on her stories. So you have three options:

1 you can follow her and wait for the next melt down in which she'll talk about it again 2 you can google or twitter search a screenshot which I'm sure someone has 3 you can shut your trap and move on

Something tells me that even after you see her posting about it, you'll dismiss it as a crazy rant or whatever, which is fine because this is part of the nature of gossip, which sadly your stupid self can't grasp.

What kind of person calls someone a this with no proof? Daldrys name has not been mentioned on the internet.You say Wood said he was abused, not sexually abused, and you jumped to the conclusion it was Daldry through other sickos on the internet that want it to be true? Bell has stated he was abused by his Dad, I believe He was violently abusive to his Mum too. You want it to be true about Daldry. Why? Now the it’s a gossip site- Why is this always the defense of people that don’t want to be held accountable. Imagine if what you are saying about Daldry is untrue, If you can? The conclusions you have jumped to are false. That to me, and many other people on here is disgusting. You are accountable for who you are. Your words. Your actions. Who does this? Imagine behaving like this on the real world. I would run a mile from you.

And btw child sexual abuse is not gossip. That shows who you are again. Get help.

I saw the national tour of "Wicked" in 2007. Stephanie J. Block was good in the role of Elphaba. I fell asleep during the first act, but woke up in time for "Defying Gravity".

It's not my favorite show (and I'm an Oz fan), but it wasn't a waste of money.

Daldry has always struck me as being tremendously pretentious. And he was totally gay at one point (not bi), and then he wasn't? I don't know anything about a history of molestation, but there's something about him that I can't pinpoint, that makes it reasonably easy to believe.

Issues!

OP is a child molester.

I'm simply stating a fact, ERW did say her ex was abused on her insta stories and I saw it live, because I follow her. It's not my fault you're hysterical about it. Maybe it was someone else who abused him, I don't know this guy's story. She did say it was a famous person still active in Hollywood.

As a matter of fact I didn't even know Daldry was gay let alone rumored to have abused Jamie Bell, that's how much I care about him or his films. I have no interest in watching a movie about a kid who likes ballet, haven't watched any of his other films, end of story.

Are you on the spectrum? You sound fixated on this. Move the fuck on.

Evan Rachel Wood is the dumb white bitch that tried to slam Kobe after he died saying "didnt he rape someone?". She got ran off the net for that one.

[quote] You say Wood said he was abused, not sexually abused, and you jumped to the conclusion it was Daldry through other sickos on the internet

She was having a melt down about sexual abuse in Hollywood because of the Netflix film, that's the fucking context in which the stories were posted.

They should make it an animated film.

That would be the most logical choice at this point, and that would enable both Idina and Kristin to come back to the roles they originated without needing the digital equivalent of the LucyMAME filters.

This was a blind on CDAN two or three days ago.

[quote]It has been pretty much tradition not to make a film of a Broadway show during its first run and compete with it, so in someways it was a victim of its own success.

True. The film of Hello, Dolly! sat on the shelf for months because everyone had assumed the show was near the end of its Broadway run when the rights were sold. But the show kept going strong, especially after Merman took over. Broadway producer David Merrick had craftily inserted a clause into the film rights sale that the film couldn't be released until the show had finished its New York run. Fox finally paid Merrick an extra million dollars to get him to waive the clause so that the film could finally be released while the stage production was still running.

The show put you to sleep, r48, but you still liked it?

I guess for "Wicked" the bar is set extremely low!

I might be on the spectrum!- Patches

I love Wicked. Seen it about 10 times. I love the songs and it’s well directed. I alway recommend it because you get your money’s worth for a $170 ticket. I believe it’s very popular overseas so a movie should do very well worldwide. And it can’t be compared to CATS. CATS was never meant to be a movie. It’s a modern dance art piece. Wicked was actually intended to be a movie first. That’s why Universal is a producer.

R48 Here. R57 I had no sleep the night before, a few scotches, and a full dinner in me by the time I entered the theater. It really was owing more to that than anything else.

[quote]I'm simply stating a fact

Then stop hiding behind your bullshit "it's gossip" line. Now you've said it's a fact, prove it.

Disney must kick itself every day for missing out on WICKED.

But the show did inspire Disney to make MALIFICENT and FROZEN (ad their sequels) , so they did OK.....

I'd love to know how much money Warners has made from allowing WICKED to use the ruby slippers ? In the original OZ books, the slippers were silver.

Any truth to the story Bebe Neuwirth gets payments because they used her mouth on the logo?

[italic]Frozen[/italic] was good. [italic]Maleficent[/italic] was awful.

r64: You aren't wrong. But Maleficent made a $758.5 million. (Cost was $185 million) a nice profit.

The sequel was a disappointment at 491.7 million (it needed to make around $500 million in order to make a profit when factoring in total budget, marketing and distribution costs).

The original "Sleeping Beauty" was a big box-office disappointment for Disney in 1959, , but has since brought in $51.6 million.

On the other hand.....the 2019 live-action "Aladdin" grossed $356.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $695.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.051 billion, against a production budget of $183 million. The film crossed the $1 billion mark on July 26, 2019, becoming the 41st film to ever reach the milestone.

[quote]The original "Sleeping Beauty" was a big box-office disappointment for Disney in 1959, , but has since brought in $51.6 million.

I love the animation style for this one with the medieval art influence. Also, as a kid had a crush on Philip, who actually had a bit of a personality compared to prior Disney princes.

I agree this probably will never be made, and thank god.

I remember being a little surprised when they made Phantom in 2004, thinking that this is something that was big ten to 15 years ago, and it would have made more sense to make it when it was red hot, but maybe there was some sort of non-compete clause with the show. It probably should have been made about ten years earlier with Antonio Banderes in his prime (for commercial reasons - not saying it was a great show that needed a movie).

Then I was really surprised last year to hear they had made a movie of Cats...

R68 The original plan for Phantom was around 89/90, with Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford reprising their roles. But then then Sarah and ALW got divorced, and that caused enough of a delay that Joel Schumacher - who ALW wanted to direct - had gotten too busy. So then it ended up in development hell. Banderas was considered, and sang it at the ALW birthday concert but nothing ended up happening until years later.

[quote]I don't imagine he's well suited to a mega- musical based on his other work.

Can you please explain what you mean by that?

[quote]They have been trying to get this movie made for 15 years. With the Cats bomb, and now Covid, it will never be made.

I'm pretty sure WICKED will eventually be made as a film, but if it's not, that won't have anything to do with the failure of CATS. I can't believe you or anyone subscribes to the theory that one mega-bomb movie musical would spell the death of the genre.

[quote]The original plan for Phantom was around 89/90, with Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford reprising their roles.

Are you sure about that? I think it would have been really odd if there were plans to make a PHANTOM movie back in '89-90, only a year or two after the show began its Broadway run.

[quote]Are you sure about that?

Yes I am. Production in 1990, release in 1991 was planned.

I could only read a tiny bit through the window in the LA Times as I’ve reached my reading article number for the month, but it looks like ALW delayed their movie as long as he could as a big fuck you to Sarah and age her out of the role. I’m surprised she didn’t have better divorce lawyers and gotten the role and movie locked in. Though doubtful in retrospect, it might of seemed like the possibility for her to launch a lucrative film career and could have alleviated the burden of ALW supporting her for decades if she’d been successful.

It was a time when ALW was telling people he was done making musicals and was moving into film, which caused quite a few of his long time staff at Really Useful to leave and him taking the company private. From the article:

[quote]The delay of “Phantom” as a film comes at a time of continued stress for Lloyd Webber and his musical empire. In spring, he lost the service of one of his closest production executives and confidantes, Bridget (Biddy) Hayward, who reportedly departed because Lloyd Webber was talking about making movies instead of composing for the theater. Hayward’s departure was damaging enough--but then in June six other Really Useful employees resigned en masse, and announced their intention of joining Hayward’s new company.

The article does contain a suggestion that they wanted to slow the film down to avoid cannibalising ticket sales, but then you'd have to ask why they only just realised that could be an issue.

[quote]“There are a number of commercial issues still to be resolved between the Really Useful Group and Warner Bros., but we are confident that these will eventually be settled in order that the film may commence shooting in the summer of 1991, with the cast as originally envisaged,” Brown said.

[quote]Brown said he could not elaborate on what the “commercial” issues still to be resolved regarding “Phantom” might be. But there has been speculation in the theater and film community that the film version may have come about too rapidly, considering that there are nine companies of the musical playing around the world, all doing huge business. The North American productions are in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Chicago.

If they plan on starting production by late 2021, then we should get a cast announcement fairly soon. It's going to take a couple months just to record the music.

The roles of Elphaba and Glinda require strong singers. Elphaba is the most vocally demanding role ever written for the Broadway stage. It requires a huge vocal range. An actress who can barely carry a tune will not work, for example Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, or Anne Hathaway. I still laugh at Madonna trying to sing the Evita score.

Ah yes, the trained soprano Anne Hathaway can't carry a tune.

R74 you do understand that vocal demands in a film are hardly a barrier to the roles?

R76 Musical fans are obsessed with the bizarre notion that they cast people who can actually sing the fucking score. Crazy, I know.

[quote]Elphaba is the most vocally demanding role ever written for the Broadway stage.

PLEASE tell me you're joking.

As for there having been plans to make a film of PHANTOM in 1991, all I can say is that if this was ever a serious plan and not just a publicity grab, then ALW is an even bigger idiot than I've always thought him to be.

It clearly wasn't for publicity - as I said, he was planning on stopping theatre work and instead move into film, and spent tens of millions buying back shares in Really Useful to allow him to do so (which ended up causing so much debt he had to sell a big stake to Polygram). Besides, I'm not sure what good publicity comes from failing to produce a film.

[quote]It clearly wasn't for publicity - as I said, he was planning on stopping theatre work and instead move into film, and spent tens of millions buying back shares in Really Useful to allow him to do so (which ended up causing so much debt he had to sell a big stake to Polygram). Besides, I'm not sure what good publicity comes from failing to produce a film.

Fine, and if all that is as you say, then indeed ALW is and has been an even bigger fool than I realized. Imagine planning to produce a film of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with the two original leads after they both had left the show and only two or three years into the run of what already showed clear signs of being a VERY long running on hit stages all over the world. Anyone with at least half a brain would have known it would be borderline insane to do such a thing, as there would have been a very good chance that the film would have greatly eaten into the audience for the many productions of the stage show, as presumably lots of people would have paid a lot less money to see the film with the two original stars and then told themselves, "Well, now I certainly don't need to see the show live, especially not without Crawford and Brightman."

What I meant about publicity is that sometimes film projects (and other projects) are mentioned just to keep the name of the property and the names of the people involved in the news. I remember, for example, that for a while there was talk of Streisand starring in a film of EVITA, but she finally made the statement that this story was put out there only to publicize the project, and she said she did not want her name associated with it, as she had no interested in playing a fascist.

Couldn't stand Wicked. And all those hammy horrible singer/actresses in it. It might as well be Disney on Ice. Wicked is to Theater what Applebees is to restaurants.

R81 Someone has been working on their analogies for the GRE.

R80 You mean what LNM did with Hamilton?

R83, good point -- BUT the thinking about whether movie versions of shows can help or hurt the box office of those shows if they're still running has changed greatly since PHANTOM opened. And also.....COVID.

Oh, so ALW was ahead of the curve...

Yes, one interpretation is that ALW was "ahead of the curve." We'll never know, if a film version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA starring Crawford and Brightman had been released in the early '90s, whether or not it would have negatively impacted the length of the show's run on Broadway and elsewhere. I tend to think it would have had a significant negative impact, under the circumstances. And obviously, I'm not the only one who thought that, as per the article linked to above.

I do think HAMILTON and even CHICAGO are very different situations, for various reasons. In fat, no two cases of when stage musicals should be adapted to film are quite the same, because there are so many variables at play.

The Hamilton one was not a film adaptation but a recording of the theatre production.