Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg Were Almost Involved in a Very Different 'Wicked' Movie

The Wicked movie was almost very, very different. As it turns out, long before the musical was even written, there was talk of a film adaptation of Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel. This Wicked movie would have had no songs and a completely different cast—and at the top of the potential cast list? Demi Moore as 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 film that never came to be while speaking to Vanity Fair. "I believe when I became the president of production at Universal, the project was already here,” he said. “It had been optioned initially by Demi Moore’s company [Movie Pictures, which had been formed in 1993].”

In the late '90s, Moore was one of Hollywood's biggest rising It girls, having starred in Striptease, A Few Good Men, and Indecent Proposal. She had also made waves with a series of nude Annie Leibovitz portraits for Vanity Fair. “I used to say, I can imagine Demi Moore naked and green on the cover of Vanity Fair,” said Maguire.

Although Moore wasn't directly involved in the production plans for Wicked, her long-time producing partner, Suzanne Todd, was negotiating on her behalf. “We had been friends for a long time,” she Todd, confirming that Moore was interested in playing Elphaba rather than Glinda. “I think on different days she could do either, but in the moment it was definitely for Elphaba,” she said.

Todd also had a list of dream Glindas who she hoped might star alongside Moore. "At the time, there were a few people top of mind: Michelle Pfeiffer, Emma Thompson, Nicole Kidman," she recalled.

Todd also recalled that Whoopi Goldberg's company was simultaneously vying for the rights—"but I really wanted it,” she said.

Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) was rumored to be interested in directing and a script was written by Linda Woolverton, who had previously worked on Disney classics such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.  “It was, as I recall, a fairly faithful adaptation of a very big, dense, thick novel. The focus was Elphaba as the warrior and The Wizard as this authoritarian leader, which is very much the DNA of Gregory’s book,” said Platt.

It was Woolverton who first imagined the film as a musical. Composer Stephen Schwartz was also keen on the idea. “Oddly enough, Demi had been the speaking voice of Esmeralda in the Disney film Hunchback of Notre Dame [Schwartz also wrote the music for that film]. She said, ‘I don’t want to do my own singing,’ and we found a soundalike who sang the character’s songs," said Schwartz, explaining that he initially thought Moore could still play the role. "The point being—I wasn’t going in saying, ‘Oh, let me do a musical for Demi.’ I just wanted to see if I could home in on the project.”

Although the film never came to be, Schwartz did go on to write the musical for the stage—and the rest is history. After Idina Menzel originated the role of the green girl on stage, Erivo took on the part in the 2024 film adaptation and is nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal.

Read the original article on InStyle