'Crazy Rich Asians' & 'In The Heights' Director set to helm 'Wicked' movie

Kara Lindsay as Glinda and Jackie Burns as Elphaba in the national tour of “Wicked,” playing at the San Diego Civic Theatre( Joan Marcus)

Finally, there is some legitimate and substantial development for the long-awaited and long-delayed Wicked film adaptation.

Deadline is reporting that Jon M. Chu has been tapped to helm the production.

He also posted the following message on social media.

Chu has had a ton of success for the past couple of years. His last feature film, Crazy Rich Asians, gross over $230 million worldwide and his adaptation of In The Heights is set for theaters and HBOMax later this year. Chu’s hiring should give you a big hint towards how Univiasal feels about his work on the latter film.

The Wicked adaptation has gone through a number of directors and development. Last fall, Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry left the project after the studio was looking to move fast on the long-awaited adaptation.

Universal originally slated the movie to open around the holidays in 2019, but ended up releasing Tom Hooper’s Cats adaptation on that date instead and moved Wicked to December 2021.

After the coronavirus pandemic struck and forced movie theaters to close and film production to shut down, the studio had to shuffle around its schedule again. That resulted in Universal resetting the animated family film Sing 2 for Dec. 22, 201, and setting Wicked.

No casting or official release date has been announced.

The three-time Tony Award-winning stage musical was adapted from Gregory Maguire’s bestselling novel by book writer Winnie Holzman and composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who are also collaborating on the screenplay adaptation. Marc Platt will produce for his Universal-based Marc Platt Productions. Wicked is produced on Broadway by Universal Stage Productions, Platt, the Araca Group, Jon B. Platt, and David Stone.

With a national tour and multiple international productions, the stage musical has been seen by over 60 million people worldwide, making it one of the most successful theatrical ventures of all time. The winner of over 100 international awards including Grammys and three Tony Awards, Wicked has been performed in over 100 cities in 16 countries around the world (U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Japan, Germany, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, The Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, and China) and has been translated into six languages: Japanese, German, Dutch, Spanish, Korean and Portuguese.

Senior EVP Production Erik Baiers and director of development Lexi Barta will oversee the project on behalf of Universal.