So much wit and talent and energy crowd the screen in this lavishly filmed variant of the Oz story that it is depressing to realize that the production never had a chance. Despite its marvelous personnel and terrific premise, The Wiz is a bungled mess.
Despite its marvelous personnel and terrific premise, THE WIZ is a bungled mess. Sidney Lumet's overblown direction strips the story of its magic, Ross is too old for the part and never quite captures Dorothy's innocence, and Pryor is wasted in a film ill-suited to his talents.
“The Wiz” is foremost a story of racial liberation, and an early piece of Afrofuturism — the combination of science fiction, fantasy, magic realism and ancient African tradition that critiques historical events or envisions a black future, inspiring such recent groundbreaking films as “Get Out” and “Black Panther” — ...
Many white folks didn't understand the cultural nuances, the Black language, or the stylistic choices, and many didn't try. Mainstream critics—most of them white men—were eager to dismiss The Wiz as an inferior movie product, a bad Hollywood investment, and an intrusion on the original film.
Some of the most common reasons cited include: The film was not well-received by critics. Many critics found the film to be too different from the original Wizard of Oz, and criticized the casting of Diana Ross as Dorothy. The film was expensive to make.
Prior to its debut and certainly much after, The Wiz was criticized for having an all black cast. It was deemed racists by majority of the white audience. They claimed that for any show or production to have a solely black cast is considered to be racist. This claim, coincides with the idea of reverse racism.
And the movie was rated G. Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, is depicted in this film as The Grotesque, with Uncanny Valley Makeup that makes her look like some sort of hideous human-sized porcelain doll. Another creepy factor comes in the moment when she tries to take Dorothy's slippers.
Original director John Badham stepped down when he objected to 33-year-old Diana Ross being cast as a teenage Dorothy. The character was changed to a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher, but by then Sidney Lumet had already replaced Badham.
Even with some new cast and songs, mixed to negative critical response following the Broadway opening had many thinking the show wouldn't make it past its opening weekend. Nevertheless, the show made it past mediocre notices and became a hit with audiences, lasting four years and 1,672 performances.
Dorothy represents Everyman; the Tin Woodman is the industrial worker, the Scarecrow is the farmer, the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan, the Wizard is the President, the munchkins are the "little people" and the Yellow Brick Road is the gold standard. Toto probably represents a dog.
Despite its lack of critical or commercial success in its original release, The Wiz became a cult classic, especially because it features Michael Jackson in his first starring theatrical film role.
The crows taunt Jackson's character, who longs to get down from the post and just “walk.” The crows assert that he can't get down because “there ain't nothing to get down for.” His existence is parallel to that of Black people in America under Jim Crow law: separate, but equal.
Wicked, on the other hand, presents a far more tumultuous, multi-dimensional Oz. Rather than being a villain, the Wicked Witch is a passionate, talented young sorceress named Elphaba who becomes a civil rights leader. The Wizard is a ruthless dictator, slowly taking away the rights of all the talking animals in Oz.
In The Wiz, the decision to have black creators and an all-black cast was an intentional one, not just a decision that happened “by accident” due to the structural racism of creative institutions like Broadway and Hollywood.
The Cowardly Lion is a major character in The Wiz. The late Ted Ross portrayed him in both the play and movie. He was banished from the jungle for being a coward and joins Dorothy and her friends to get courage from The Wiz.
The musical adaptation of Carrie is perhaps the most infamous failure in Broadway history. The show was such a failure that books have been written about just how terrible Carrie was. The musical was adapted from Steven King's homonymous novel, and the classic horror film that followed.
The Lion King sits at the top, with a Broadway gross of $1.8 billion. Dates refer to original Broadway productions, with notes added for future productions that outran the Broadway run. † Background shading indicates shows running in the week commencing 29 September 2023 in Broadway theatres.
Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific has won more Tony Awards over all of its Broadway productions to date than any other musical. That's 17 Tonys: 10 for the original 1949 production, plus seven for the 2008 revival.
When Judy Garland was cast in the role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, she was not their first choice. Producers Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy indeed wanted her cast from the beginning, but the studio chief wanted Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox.
However, she has been married twice, first to music executive and businessman Robert Ellis Silberstein, the father of her daughters Tracee and Chudney, and second to billionaire shipping magnate Arne Naess Jr., the father of her two sons Ross and Evan.
The Wiz proved to be a commercial failure, as the $24 million production only earned $13.6 million at the box office. Though prerelease television broadcast rights had been sold to CBS for over $10 million, in the end, the film produced a net loss of $10.4 million for Motown and Universal.
The Tin Woodman states unequivocally that he has neither heart nor brain, but cares nothing for the loss of his brain. Near the end of the novel, Glinda the Good Witch praises his brain as not quite that of the Scarecrow's.
“The Wiz,” inspired by L. Frank Baum's children's book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” had an all-Black cast, and premiered on Broadway in 1975. It netted seven Tonys, including best musical.
