🎬✨️ #ArtIsAWeapon Happy 45th Anniversary to this classic Black film! I still watch #TheWiz whenever it's on TV.
I am looking forward to the Broadway musical revival at the Marquis Theater in April 2024.
Reposted from @musicsermon 45 years ago [October 24, 1978] The Wiz, Sydney Lumet's Berry Gordy-produced vision for the reimagined version of The Wizard of Oz - now a massive cult classic - opened in theaters... and flopped at the box office.
Gordy had pitched Universal pictures so heavily on the adaptation of the immensely successful Broadway musical that the studio didn't set a budget, and the movie only earned 13M in initial release against 24M in costs. (About 61M box office against an appx 110M budget by today's numbers)
A not small portion of that budget can be seen in the infamous Emerald City sequence, shot at the (then still newish and shiny) World Trade Center
400 dancers and models (including supermodel Iman and the legendary Bethann Hardison).
1200 costumes - 3 changes each.
Designs by Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Mary McFadden, Ralph Lauren, Halston, Norma Kamali, furriers Alixandre and Ben Kahn and others.
22 playback speakers.
385 crew members.
4 shoot nights.
1 gold piano-playing Quincy Jones (The Wiz was the beginning of Q and Michael's relationship).
When you wanna talk about something being ahead of its time, we can pull this scene. Lumet wanted the segment to be all about “status and style," Black opulence before we were using the phrase.
It was the most expensive shoot ever at WTC.
#TheWiz #QuincyJones #BlackFilms #BlackGirlMovieGeeks
