But he did write at the time that there was no way to “wrestle” the stage show “into a single film without doing some real damage to it. He did not address the power of “Defying Gravity,” the most pop-u-lahr song in the score. This was common practice in the late ’50s, 1960s and even early ’70s, with a significant number of musicals going out to cinemas with a break mirroring where the intermission spot came in their Broadway incarnations, including “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound of Music,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “West Side Story,” “Camelot,” “South Pacific,” “Sweet Charity,” “Star!,” “Oliver!,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”īut Quentin Tarantino is the only major filmmaker to try a theatrical intermission in recent years, with “Hateful Eight,” and that was limited to a very narrow run before he went nationwide with an intermission-free cut at the same running time.Ĭhu issued his own announcement about the halving when the news was revealed April 26.
STEVEN SCHWARTZ MOVIE
Chu and have Cynthia Erivo as the Wicked Witch delivering “Defying Gravity,” with Ariana Grande as her blonde-privileged counterpart.Īpparently never under consideration: an initial road-show version of a long movie with an intermission built in. The Universal films will be directed by Jon M. Schwartz is understood to be working on at least one new song. I feel confident that by the time the movie is made, if we all continue to have the same degree of input, I could have a conversation with anyone who has a question about any of the changes made from the stage show and justify why I think it’s better for the movie.”Īll parties have indicated that additional material is being added in lengthening a show that runs 2 hours and 45 minutes on Broadway - with an intermission - into two films that will presumably last at least an hour and a half each. They can’t just be changes to do something different. They need to add something to the story or the characters. But we strongly believe that this is what’s best for our story, our show, and our fans.”Īdditionally, Schwartz said, “What we have discussed is that changes need to be ‘additive,’ to use (producer) Marc Platt’s term. Of course, when it’s all done, if it doesn’t work that way, we’ll have to figure something out. “So, for these two reasons,” Schwartz continued, “plus the excitement of doing something that’s never been done before with a musical, we have decided to do two movies. The first is that even as a very long single movie, it required us cutting or omitting things that we wanted to include and that we think fans of the show and the story will appreciate.” The second reason, as he explained it, came down to the show-stopper number, and the inability for what comes at the beginning of Act 2 to escape its gravitational pull. “The truth is we tried for some time to make it one movie, even if it had to be one very long movie,” Schwartz said in his statement to the newsletter.