The $750m movie Demi Moore was desperate to make: “That will grease the skids”
There came a time in the 1990s when Demi Moore was everywhere.
If she wasn’t having an erotic pottery-making session with Patrick Swayze in Ghost, then she was making headlines as the highest-paid female actor in Hollywood following her $12.5million role in the Razzie smash hit Striptease.
Even though some of her movie appearances during this era turned out to be flops, she still had a hold over Hollywood, and this influence extended to a production company called Moving Pictures, which was behind movies such as Now and Then. While the company, which had ties to Universal, didn’t last long, there was a moment when Moore was going to helm an adaptation of Wicked, way before it became the 2024 mega blockbuster that people couldn’t shut up about, or even a Broadway musical for that matter.
Wicked first emerged as a novel in 1995, written by Gregory Maguire as what is essentially just The Wizard of Oz fan fiction. Taking characters from the classic story and imagining a complex backstory focusing on the relationship between Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West, the novel became a success, although it would receive a further boost of popularity once it was adapted into a musical in 2004.
Before Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande took on the leading roles in the recent movie adaptation, Wicked was one of the most popular shows on Broadway, but it could’ve had a life as a movie of considerably less epic proportions when Moore tried to bring it to life in the ‘90s. The project got as far as a screenplay being written, while certain Hollywood stars were reportedly interested in starring in the film.
Maguire told Vanity Fair, “People who had expressed an interest in the first six months included Whoopi Goldberg and Claire Danes,” while figures like Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman were also considered in the mix
“My agents in New York and in Hollywood recommended the Demi Moore proposal because her company had a preexisting relationship with Universal. They said that will grease the skids on getting a potential project into production,” explained Maguire. However, there wasn’t enough momentum behind the project, wherein nothing came to fruition, and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles in Hollywood sometimes.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Moore discussed the failure of adapting Wicked all those years ago, stating, “It wasn’t necessarily right or the right time. I mean, we’re talking that long ago, but it found its right time, and that’s what’s important”. As part of the Wizard of Oz universe, a movie that is so enduring and beloved, Wicked had to be done justice, and the actor is glad that it has since been given the budget to thrive as a large-scale, special-effects-laden production.
When it was in the works in the ‘90s, Wicked was only allocated a budget of around $35m, which just wouldn’t be enough, so perhaps it’s for the best that nothing came of it back then, which eventually thrived as a musical before finding life on the big screen, as directed by John M Chu. The film grossed a whopping $750m against its $150m budget, making it one of the most successful musical movies ever made, nabbing a sequel for release in 2025.
