They’re making a film adaptation of Into the Woods! Did you know that? Did I know that? This is the type of news item that I go out of my way to stay on top of. How could I not have known?
The film already has a fair share of celebrity clout — Meryl Streep has been cast as the fast-singing, garden-obsessed Witch (but can she even touch Bernadette?) and Johnny Depp will be playing the predatory Wolf. No other cast members have been confirmed, but generically handsome humans Chris Pine and Jake Gyllenhaal have both met and sang for director Rob Marshall and might be signing on to play the musical’s two charming-yet-shallow princes.
Quick question? Do they sing? These videos suggest that both Gyllenhaal and Pine can at least carry a tune (if that really is Pine singing), but Into the Woods is a Sondheim musical and Sondheim is notoriously hard to perform. Why not consider actors with real Broadway backgrounds like Aaron Tviet, Bryan Terrell Clark or Jeremy Jordan? Even Johnny Depp, while always willing to go for it, doesn’t have a very high quality voice for musical theater. Do filmmakers not remember the great Russell Crowe/Javert debacle of 2012?
Or maybe I’m wrong and they’ll totally kill it. Here’s a taste of what they’ll be singing:
