Actress/producer Salma Hayek and ABC are developing an 8-part miniseries based on author Gregory Maguire's 1995 book "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West."
The script is by Erik Jendersen, producer of HBO's Emmy Award-winning "Band of Brothers" miniseries.
Hayek and Jose Tamez will produce the ABC minseries via their Ventanarosa Productions.
"Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West", was written by Maguire in 1995, with illustrations by Douglas Smith, based on the public domain writings of "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz" author L. Frank Baum and seven authors after him who continued writing the book series.
Maguire's take is a 'revisionist' look at the land and characters of 'Oz', including violent imagery and sexual situations, following the story of 'Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West', who it seems wasn't so wicked after all.
It is the first in the "Wicked Years" book series followed by "Son of a Witch", published in 2005 and "A Lion Among Men", published October 2008.
In 2003, the first novel became the basis for the Broadway musical "Wicked: The Untold Story Of The Witches Of Oz", separately in development as a feature with Universal.
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