Two Fall Films, Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon, Chapter Two’ and John Chu’s ‘Wicked,’ Test the Boundaries of Filmmaking

‘Horizon, Chapter Two’Opening September 7‘Wicked’Opening November 22 The two movies I’m most looking forward to between now and the end of 2024 — with widely varying expectations — are Kevin Costner’s “Horizon, Chapter Two” and John Chu’s “Wicked.”Mr. Costner’s projected four-part “Horizon” saga is a rarity: true, novel-style storytelling for the cinema. Normally, great novels do not make great films. Anyone who’s read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work would agree that there are no good movies based on his full-length novels, including the three attempts to film his 1925 masterpiece, “The Great Gatsby.” On the other hand, Richard Brooks’s “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (1954), based on Fitzgerald’s greatest short story, “Babylon Revisited” (1931), is nearly perfect — easily the finest Fitzgerald moments on screen. It’s not too long or too short, and one doesn’t feel that the director and writer had to cut out nearly everything to make it all work in less than two hours.You could also make the point that Woody Allen’s contemporary classic “Midnight In Paris” (2011) also offers an excellent representation of Fitzgerald on screen, in that the author himself is a character, played by Tom Hiddleston. Among working film-makers, Mr. Allen realizes better than most the power of using short stories to make movies; his early works, like “Bananas” (1971), are more like stand-up monologues expanded into cinematic form. Often, musical theater does a better job of capturing what’s essential about a great novel, which is why the 1998 Broadway version of E.L. Doctorow’s “Ragtime” by Terrence McNally, Lynn Ahrens, and Stephen Flaherty is a much more exciting work of drama than Miloš Forman’s bone-dry 1981 film version of that novel. “Water For Elephants” — currently running on Broadway — also shows how music, lyrics, and dance can illuminate a story better than a movie, even though, in this instance, the 2011 movie isn’t bad at all.The 2003 Broadway musical “Wicked,” by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman — perhaps the most successful show of this century — does such a superior job of adapting Gregory Maguire’s 1995 “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” that it’s not surprising that Hollywood has waited all this time to give us a movie version. As a lover of both the book and the musical — and, indeed, the entire 125-year-old mega-franchise that is “Oz” — I am both eagerly anticipating and dreading the long-awaited movie version.“Wicked” fans have been long aware that there were two ways to go with this story in terms of possible movie versions. One could adapt the novel, which would be best served by a long-ish mini-series of six or eight hours total; there’s that much plot, subplot, characters, and ideas. Or, one could film the Broadway version, which gives the essence of Mr. Maguire’s tale of the witches of Oz in considerably less time, and throws in rather spectacular song-and-dance production numbers. Here’s a show that literally defies gravity.With “Wicked” the movie, Mr. Chu has apparently refused to pick an approach; rather, he’s going to attempt to do both things at the same time, somehow. “Wicked” is set to be two movies, rather like Denis Villeneuve’s hit adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” which shows every sign of becoming a contemporary classic. Likewise, “Wicked” will be an extra-long, six-hour saga divided into two parts. Thus, it’s going be a true film of the novel, but with production numbers, songs, and dances.I can’t help but wonder: How’s that going to work? The pacing of a filmed novel and a musical are so overwhelmingly different that it seems impossible to reconcile the two. Are we going to go along with dramatic scenes followed by a song every 30 minutes or so? Is it going to seem like singing-and-dancing randomly inserted into a miniseries? It’s promising that Ms. Holzman is also writing the screenplay, and surely Messrs. Maguire and Schwartz are involved, but let’s just say that I am managing my expectations.Conversely, “Horizon,” which will be roughly 12 hours long when all four parts are released, is a true epic novel conceived for the cinema. Yes, its elongated format would fit more easily into a streaming mini-series, but Mr. Costner, as director, takes full advantage of the cinematic nature of the project. First, he gives us overwhelmingly majestic vistas to stare at — call it God’s own CGI. You really do need a big screen to get the full impact of this big story. Further, the pacing is deliberate and, while never plodding, gloriously unrushed; in all, part one is like reading the first 250 pages of an epic saga: Characters and concepts are established, but a lot is still to happen. The thought of what’s to come is giving me something extra to look forward to in early autumn.

Two Fall Films, Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon, Chapter Two’ and John Chu’s ‘Wicked,’ Test the Boundaries of Filmmaking

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