Holzman's work is akin to what Hollywood studios would often do with successful musicals...use the title and some character names to tell a whole new story that really doesn't have much at all in common with the source material.
Clearly, whomever had the idea to option the novel for the stage, that person really only wanted the title and the story's relationship with THE WIZARD OF OZ.
The thing that annoyed me about doing that was that they decided to co-opt an ending that Gregory Maguire very specifically considers in the novel and then rejects. And that destroys the whole point, which is that there will be no happy ending for the "wicked" character.
Gregory Maguire, of course, is crying all the way to the bank about what was done to his story. :)
Maguire's OZ books would be great candidates for adaptation into a fantasy television series for a cable channel or streaming service that had the budget to do some serious world-building on the scale of GAME OF THRONES. The first part of the story, told in the novel WICKED, is also so different from the story told on stage, that it likely wouldn't compete. It would be a whole different thing...a horse of another color, if you will. The one problem I see is that I can't imagine such a series using the title WICKED, which would definitely carry associations to the musical. They'd have to come up with a new title and still make it clear what the thing is. |
