In a parallel universe, James “King of the World” Cameron may have directed the “Wicked” movies as the filmmaker recalled nearly getting a chance to tackle the stage musical adaptation about 15 years ago, but admittedly couldn’t make it work.
“I almost made Wicked,” Cameron revealed to Matt Belloni on his recent appearance on the podcast “The Town,” released in late November. “I really love the story. ‘The Wizard of Oz‘ is one of my favorites. This is going back 15 years. I couldn’t find the song.”
While “Titanic” was very much a romance story that connected with a large swath of audiences, we don’t exactly know if Cameron could have been able to properly navigate the whimsical nature of an Oz story or being able to juggle the musical side of things. Obviously, neither he nor a studio was convinced enough to the point that Jon M. Chu ultimately took up the directorial reins (with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande taking on the lead roles) and delivered two box office successes for Universal Pictures.
Interestingly enough, Cameron would end up casting future Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All At Once”) to play a human scientist character named Dr. Karina Mogue in the “Avatar” franchise (still hasn’t shown up despite being cast ages ago, said to be in “Avatar 4” and “Avatar 5”) and would go on to play Madame Morrible, the Dean of Sorcery Studies at Shiz University in the two “Wicked” movies.
“Wicked” has gone on to earn Universal over a billion dollars at the global box office ($758.7 million and $393.2 million, respectively), with early talk that the studio might consider developing sequels/spin-offs to keep the newly minted franchise going beyond the two feature films.
Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire & Ash” heads to theaters later this month as the fate of the next two installments is expected to heavily rely on how audiences support this latest chapter in the Pandora saga, alongside teases of a potential animated anthology spinoff film/series being discussed.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
