After Cats… and The Prom… and Cinderella… there are no fourth strikes.
Something Wicked this way does not come for James Corden, if a new online petition has anything to say about it.
More than 40k people have already added their signatures to a Change.org campaign to keep the “Late Night” host away from the new musical movie.
The organizer went into great detail as to why the Englishman should not be cast in the upcoming big screen version of the Broadway prequel to The Wizard of Oz.
“James Corden in no way shape or form should be in or near the production of Wicked the movie,” it argues. “That’s pretty much it.”
Corden’s record in movie musicals to date has been questionable; in 2019 he appeared in the critically annihilated “Cats”, which is still giving reviewers nightmares two years on.
The following year he gave “one of the worst performances of the 21st century”, per Variety, when he played a gay man in “The Prom”, a casting that irked many in the LGBTQ community.
Most recently this year he voiced a character in “Cinderella” opposite Camila Cabello and Billy Porter, a film that currently languishes at 42 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some 41,000 people online — and counting — do not want to see a fourth credit.
“James C*rden ran over my pet dog and then stepped out of his car in a rat suit singing ‘let’s get loud’ while thrusting his penis,” one campaigner explained their reasoning in a (hopefully) exaggerated tweet.
“We’ve suffered enough,” reasoned another.
“I’m signing because I couldn’t find a petition to deport james corden out of the usa,” a third explained. A fourth simply declared: “End terrorism now.”
Since taking over from Craig Ferguson in 2015, Corden’s popularity exploded — for some at least — thanks in no small part to the Carpool Karaoke segment he introduced to the talk show.
Film roles rolled in, as he voiced characters in “Trolls”, “The Emoji Movie”, and “Peter Rabbit”, while he also served as host for the Grammy Awards in 2017 and 2018, as well as the Tony Awards in 2016 and 2019. Corden himself even has a Tony Award for Best Actor, for his Broadway run of “One Man, Two Guvnors” in 2012.
The petition comes hot on the heels of further casting criticism for the film last week when 28-year-old Ariana Grande and 34-year-old Cynthia Erivo were announced as the leads — with some fans unconvinced they would be able to pull off the teenage Good Witch Glinda and Wicked Witch-to-be Elphaba, respectively.
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