by Reilly Wilmit. @reilly.wilmit.
ELSTREE, ENGLAND - Wicked director Jon M. Chu has announced significant rewrites to his film adaptation of the iconic musical, changing it from the origin story of the famed Wicked Witch of the West to the tale of a spunky floating witch’s hat, due to “green screen complications.”
“Look, what were we supposed to do? What’s her name… Alfalfa? Yeah, Alphabet’s green, the screen is green, it was a whole friggin’ mess,” said SFX supervisor Paul Maggio, putting out a cigarette on his desk next to what appeared to be a 1995 Microsoft PC. “We blew like 90% of our budget on the pop lady playing the pink one. We don’t have money for big fancy special effects. You know what we do have? Paulie, baby! I’m an ideas man. I told Jon and Stephen how to turn this around and they were on board.”
We sat down with Jon M. Chu to discuss the production changes in more detail.
“Stephen Schwartz has written some excellent new material which really captures the emotional turmoil that comes with being a sentient, floating witch’s hat," noted Chu, signing a contract ominously entitled Wicked 3: Tokyo Drift. “Cynthia Erivo has been such a trooper through the whole process. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to belt out those songs in a green morph suit, but she makes it sound easy.”
In speaking with additional behind the scenes crew members, it's clear the solution was a team effort.
“We tried painting her green like they do on Broadway, but then it would have to be the story of a floating witch’s hat and a pair of eyes, and that would just be stupid,” said Nina Fox, Wicked’s head makeup artist, tossing approximately four dozen MAC Chromacakes into a dumpster outside the studio. “We were so lost, but then Paul ran in waving a morph suit and yelling ‘I’ve got it! Elbow can wear this in the movies!’ Jon and Stephen loved it. What can I say? Paulie’s an ideas man.”
Sources tell us that additional changes to the script include turning the denizens of the Emerald City into disembodied heads, as well as replacing the character of Fiyero with a six foot Halloween scarecrow from Mr. Maggio’s garage.