ABC has decided to return to the miniseries market and has picked a hell of an adaption. ABC, with the help of
Salma Hayek
, is turning
Gregory Maguire's
best selling book,
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
into an 8 hour epic miniseries.
For those of you who are thinking that they mean the musical that is now a
Broadway
hit, you are wrong. The musical is only loosely based on the book while the miniseries will be a more representation of Maguire's novel. It will center around Elphaba Thropp, a.k.a
The Wicked Witch of the West
, and the journey that led her to the witch that Dorothy murdered.
Salma Hayek's production studio Ventanarosa will help ABC develop the miniseries with Emmy Awarding winning Erik Jendresen (
Band of Brothers
) penning the script. With Jendresen developing the script, I can expect that the miniseries will stay true to the darker side of the novel.
This novel is one of my favorites of all time. It deals with issues such as segregation, religion, political corruption, and racism. By the end of this novel, you are almost in tears when Dorothy commits the act that ends Elphaba's life. As you watch
OZ,
you see Dorothy's side and you hate the witch. After
Wicked you will never watch that movie the same way again.
This is sure to be a hit for the alphabet network, and may even revive the miniseries for other networks. Information has yet to be released, as the ink is still wet. But expect
Wicked in the fall of 2011/Spring2012
being the first casualty, and when viewers had finally digested the fact that they would no longer be able to see the characters they had watched their entire life, CBS then went and canceled GL's sister soap, As The World Turns
. Suddenly, no soap opera was safe. Everyone began doing whatever they could to try and cut costs. Days Of Our Lives cut Deidre Hall
And Drake Hogestyn
without batting a eyelash, only to promote Alison Sweeny
while her fire was hot. 
