Wicked fans petition the movie adaptation producers to NOT cast James Corden

Following the news that Universal’s long-gestating movie adaptation of Wicked has cast Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, fans have demanded that another movie musical regular not be cast: James Corden.

Mikel Miller started a petition on Change.org on Friday against the potential casting of the 43-year-old talk show host and actor.

While there has been no indication that he’s being considered for a role, the petition has been among the highest-signed on Change.org with over 52,000 people signing in just four days.

‘James Corden in no way shape or form should be in or near the production of Wicked the movie. That’s pretty much it,’ Miller succinctly said in the petition.

Corden has starred in a number of recent movie musicals, including Into the Woods, Cats, The Prom, and, most recently, Amazon’s Cinderella.

It seems that just his penchant for joining movie musicals is enough for these fans to insist that he not join their beloved Wicked.

However, it is worth noting that Wicked producer Marc Platt – a producer of the original play who has been trying to get this movie adaptation off the ground since 2004 – has a connection to Corden.

Platt produced 2014’s Into the Woods, where Corden played both the Baker and the film’s Narrator.

Jon M. Chu (In the Heights) is directing Wicked from a script by Winnie Holzman, who wrote the musical book for the original musical, based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire.

The story is a re-telling of The Wizard of Oz,  told from the perspective of the Witches in the Land of Oz, before Dorothy Gale arrives via tornado.

The Broadway show is the fifth-longest-running production of all time, still running after its debut in 2003, and it was just the third Broadway production ever to gross over $1 billion. 

Grande has been cast as Glinda the Good Witch with Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, originally played on Broadway by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, respectively.

While Grande is best known for her singing career, she has previously starred on Victorious, the spin-off Sam & Cat, Scream Queens, Zoolander 2 and the upcoming Don’t Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.

Erivo is coming off playing Aretha Franklin in National Geographic’s Genius TV series, along with the 2021 film Chaos Walking.

She also recently starred in director John Ridley’s Needle in a Timestack with Leslie Odom Jr. and Freida Pinto.