Stephen Schwartz reveals the latest on the Wicked movie

Stephen Schwartz has given fans an update on the upcoming Wicked movie.

Wicked reveals the ‘true untold story’ behind the Wizard Of Oz and just what happened before Dorothy dropped in.

A movie adaption has been in the works for years and the musical’s composer Stephen Schwartz has revealed the latest progress.

“There will be a movie of Wicked, I can say that definitively,” he said this week. “When that movie will be, I can’t say. We are still in the process of working on the screenplay.

“The amazing British director Stephen Daldry is going to be directing it… He’s so great… we’ve been working together, Winnie Holzman and I, have been working with Stephen on this.”

In an interview with Elaine Paige on BBC Radio 2, Schwartz went on to share his thoughts about adapting the hit stage musical for the screen.

He said: “It’s about trying to come fresh to the material, ‘Right, how do you tell the story as a movie and don’t be trapped by what you did on on the stage?’

“Some things that happen on stage are not going to translate to film but there are so many things you can do on film, that you can’t do on stage.

“So, you know just trying to work out how to tell the story, obviously keeping the elements of it that the audience is going to want to see, the songs they’re going to want to hear.

“But really, not just pick up a show and turn a camera on it.”

He added: “It’s so exciting to be able to tell a story that one is passionate about, in a different medium.”

Featuring some of musical theatre’s most iconic songs, such as Defying Gravity and Popular, Wicked has proved a huge hit in both London’s West End and on Broadway for almost two decades.

Wicked has been running at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre for 13 years – and recently extended until December 2020.

Over 500,000 new tickets have been made available for performances Monday-Sunday.

The current Wicked London cast is led by Nikki Bentley as Elphaba and Helen Woolf as Glinda.