Universal's WICKED Films - News & Discussion Thread — Page 63

(double post)

I still find it odd they’re not clearly marketing this as part one of two.

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2024/07/03/john-powell-scoring-jon-m-chus-wicked/


John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon, The Bourne Identity, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Happy Feet, Don’t Worry Darling) has recently been recording his underscore for the upcoming film adaptation of the stage musical Wicked.

BwayLB said: "^ Another surprising behind the scenes development!"

Underscore music is generally scored by another composer. Stephen Schwartz did not write the scene transition music or underscore for the Broadway version of WICKED - William David Brohn did. Schwartz only composed the music to the songs.

BrodyFosse123 said: "BwayLB said: "^ Another surprising behind the scenes development!"

Underscore music is generally scored by another composer. Stephen Schwartz did not write the scene transition music or underscore for the Broadway version of WICKED - William David Brohn did. Schwartz only composed the music to the songs."

Saying that Schwartz "only composed the music to the songs" demonstrates a lack of understanding of these roles and the function of the music department.

On Broadway the composer has final say in all the musical elements even if they are not personally creating them. Sometimes they do also write some of those elements but opt to give the credit to other people. On WICKED, musical arrangements (which includes incidental arrangements) were credited to Stephen Oremus and Alex Lacamoire, Brohn was the orchestrator, and Jim Abbott was the Dance Arranger.

The film world is different, and the composer does not own their work in the way that they do on Broadway. Hiring a not-low-profile composer like John Powell is a little unusual, but there are no rules and we don't know the extent of his scoring. It could be just a couple minutes of music cues, or some glorified arrangements.

Looking at the budgets for both films (Part One costed 145 million dollars and Part Two will cost 165 million dollars), Wicked as a whole, cost 310 million dollars to make. Is it my imagination or is this the most expensive movie musical adaptation of a Broadway musical of all time? Even Hello Dolly! back in 1969 cost 25 million dollars to make, and that was around 200 million in today's money.

I'm wondering if the humongous budget is one of the reasons why Universal decided to split the movie into two parts. After looking that up, I guess one can't blame them for doing so.

BrodyFosse123 said: "Both parts were already filmed. To avoid continuity and scheduling issues bothparts were filmed as one film though they will be released separately."



It has nothing to do with continuity and everything to do with money. They weren't "filmed as one film," they just shot both parts back to back, similar to what Lord of the Rings did. Much more expensive to wrap a huge film like this and then do it all over again months or years later for a second part.

Musical Master said: "Looking at the budgets for both films (Part One costed 145 million dollars and Part Two will cost165 million dollars), Wicked as a whole, cost 310 million dollars to make. Is it my imagination or is this the most expensive movie musical adaptation of a Broadway musical of all time? Even Hello Dolly!back in 1969 cost 25 million dollars to make, and that was around 200 million in today's money.

I'm wondering if the humongous budget is one of the reasons why Universal decided to split the movie into two parts. After looking that up, I guess one can't blame them for doing so."

Well if they were just one movie it would only be around 2-2.5 hours long so a shorter filming time so I doubt that is the reason for 2 films. It's two films because they're greedy and time will tell if that pays off for them.

Jeffrey Karasarides said: "I also imagine thatproduction being shut down for months due to the SAG strike might've also added to the budget."

It wasn't shut down for as long as you might think, as Jon Chu worked with actors not involved with the strike e.g Jonathan Bailey, other brit actors in smaller roles. They also did some filming using doubles.

They spent money.

I love it when film promotions show how the look of the film was done. Not to mention heavy use of large-scale practical sets is very refreshing to see in an ocean of CGI settings in most effects heavy movies these days. All this effort for a two-parter movie musical; is going to be something to behold and Chu and the rest of the crew should deserve all the positive attention.

It could've been so easy for the studio to take the easy way out, but I'm personally happy they didn't. This is old-school, large-scaled, and old-fashioned Hollywood musical magic needs to happen more often.