James Cameron Reveals He Nearly Directed Wicked 15 Years Ago

November 27, 2025

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James Cameron reveals that he almost directed Wicked years before the Jon M. Chu adaptations. From Titanic to the Avatar films, most of James Cameron’s movies have been major hits. He directed three of the four highest-grossing films of all time, but he has never directed a movie musical before.

While talking about the importance of movies feeling like “an event” on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron shared that he almost directed Wicked and confirmed that he even met with Universal Pictures about it. Check out his comments below:

The kind of movies that I like to watch, let’s say Dune or even Wicked. I almost made Wicked back when. I really love the story, I mean The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite [movies]. This is going back 15 years.

It ultimately did not work out because Cameron “couldn’t find the song,” but he admits that he is still open to the possibility of making a movie musical, especially since “my favorite movie is a musical, Wizard of Oz.”

Cameron’s reference to the fact that his meeting with Universal Pictures took place almost 15 years ago about how long it took for the first Wicked movie to be made. Many Wicked adaptations were attempted but did not come to fruition after Gregory Maguire’s novel was published in 1995 and after the Broadway musical debuted in 2003.

Whoopi Goldberg, Salma Hayek, Nicole Kidman, Lady Gaga, Emma Thompson, Claire Danes, Laurie Metcalf, and Michelle Pfeiffer are among the stars who were attached to various attempts over the years. J.J. Abrams, Ryan Murphy, James Mangold, and Rob Marshall were reportedly considered to direct Wicked at one point as well.

As is the case with most of Cameron’s movies, Wicked and Wicked: For Good have proven to be enormous box office successes. The first installment grossed $756 million worldwide and For Good‘s opening weekend box office was $226 million globally.

Cameron’s take on Wicked would have inevitably been very different from that of Chu, though. He has unparalleled experience when it comes to making ambitious blockbusters and developing a fictional world like Pandora in the Avatar movies. However, Chu came to Wicked having directed Into the Heights, while it would have been Cameron’s first movie musical.

Even though Cameron still has an interest in making a movie musical years after nearly directing Wicked, he is busy with the upcoming Avatar movies and several other projects. This includes writing a script for a seventh Terminator film and adapting Last Train from Hiroshima, which tells the story of a Japanese man who survives the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.