Is ‘Wicked’ a Hit Because It Doesn’t Star James Corden?

The biggest movie in the world right now is Wicked, the musical revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz that in no way includes James Franco and/or a CGI monkey voiced by Zach Braff. 

Wicked, of course, fills us in on the Wicked Witch of the West’s backstory, casting her in a more sympathetic light, which wasn’t totally necessary, considering that most of us would be justifiably pissed off if a teenager accidentally killed our sibling and then helped themselves to the corpse’s footwear.

Wicked has already made over $165 million worldwide. Its opening weekend was the biggest ever for a movie based on a Broadway musical, and it’s considered an Oscar frontrunner. And according to some folks on the internet, we have James Corden’s non-involvement to thank.

Obviously, the people who actually made the movie, and the original show, deserve the most credit. But someone in the casting department decided to not call Corden, and clearly that person deserves some sort of award.

Years before the movie was made, multiple petitions were launched urging the studio not to include the former host of The Late Late Show. “James Corden in no way shape or form should be in or near the production of Wicked the movie,” proclaimed one petition that garnered over 100,000 supporters. “Please DO NOT ALLOW JAMES CORDEN IN THE MOVIE WICKED! PLEASE!!!!” another urged.

Corden has become something of an internet villain in recent years, owing to various accounts of him randomly being a dick to people. But more relevantly, he has been cast in a number of high-profile musicals, and it’s never worked out well. He played “The Baker” in the lackluster version of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, and later sparked a massive backlash for playing what many considered to be an “offensive” gay character in the Netflix musical The Prom. 

Then there was Cats. Yeah.

After the movie flopped, Corden low-key blamed the film’s visual effects department while presenting with co-star Rebel Wilson at the Oscars. Which, one could argue, is a little like blaming the Levi’s corporation for shitting your pants in public. 

Prior to Wicked’s release, there were concerns that it would be a repeat of the Cats disaster. After all, both were Broadway musical movies released by Universal. Clearly that didn’t happen, and a viral social media post indicates that a lot of people believe that the takeaway here is that Hollywood should “never cast” Corden ever again.

To be fair, this isn’t the first Broadway musical adaptation to do well at the box office (Les Miserables made $442 million), and there have certainly been a number of non-Corden bombs (Dear Evan Hansen didn’t even make its budget back). 

Still, had James Corden showed up as like the Mayor of Munchkinland or something, taking hits to the balls and making goofy faces, there probably would have been a lot more refund requests.