Lots of people are intent on ensuring that James Corden doesn’t get cast in any more movie adaptations of famous musicals.
The schmaltzy late night host has become a consistent presence in several recent stage-to-screen adaptations, most notoriously the cursed Cats movie that looked like the worst fever dream ever.
When he then shamelessly twerked in the window of a random car in Los Angeles while attempting to promote the new Cinderella movie, his reputation as as a bad omen for musical adaptations was set.
When Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were announced as Elphaba and Glina in the forthcoming Wicked adaptation last week, fans were quick to ensure that Corden couldn’t gatecrash the movie and ruin those two strong casting choices.
A petition was set up on Change.org to keep James Corden out of Wicked, addressed directly to Universal, the producers of the movie. “James Corden in no way shape or form should be in or near the production of Wicked the movie… that’s pretty much it,” the petition said, cutting straight to the point.
And it’s proved immensely popular, gaining over 47,000 signatures at the time of writing; that means it’s just several thousands signatures away from its target of 50,000, which would make it one of the top signed petitions on the website.
Corden’s career is such a curious case: I’ve saw him on stage, performing in One Man, Two Guvnors in London’s West End, and he’s a talented comic actor. He even won the Tony for Best Actor in a Play for that role in 2012. He’s been a fine host of the Tonys on multiple occasions.
Love Film & TV?
Get the latest Film & TV news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
But when you then seemingly take any big screen role with no discoverable discretion, appearing in everything from The Prom to Into the Woods to the aforementioned Cats and Cinderella, your integrity falls by the wayside.
It’s not clear if there were even any tentative plans to include Corden in Wicked, although almost 50,o00 people aren’t willing to take that chance. There’s a tiny part of me now, though, that thinks it would be a wicked irony if the producers decided to cast him in the movie now just of spite. That’s how you get your movie to go viral.
For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.
Check out a clip of James Corden in Cats:
