Into the Woods
Short description
A childless baker and his wife learn that a witch's curse is the reason they cannot conceive. The witch offers to lift it if they gather a set of items for a potion she needs to restore what she has lost, sending them into a forest where several familiar fairy-tale figures are pursuing wishes of their own. Cinderella hopes to attend the royal ball, Jack wants his cow to give milk, Little Red Riding Hood is bound for her grandmother's house, and Rapunzel is kept hidden away. The couple's errand brings them across these stories, which increasingly overlap as the characters chase what they want.
The film is Rob Marshall's adaptation of the stage musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the screenplay. It followed Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in his filmography and preceded Mary Poppins Returns. The cast includes Meryl Streep as the Witch, Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife, James Corden as the Baker, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood and Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf, among 22 credited cast members.
Produced by Walt Disney Pictures with Marc Platt Productions and Lucamar Productions on a budget of 50 million dollars, the film took about 213 million dollars worldwide. Audiences rate it modestly, at 5.9/10 on IMDb from some 153,000 votes and 5.8/10 on TMDB from around 4,500 votes, while critics were somewhat warmer, at 6.6/10 across 222 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- One scene was filmed in front of the tower where the beautiful Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) was imprisoned. Art directors and builders constructed a full-scale tower in the ruins of an 18th-century ruin – the remains of Waverley Abbey, located in Farnham, Surrey.
- Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, Andrew Rannells, Denis O'Hare, Johnny Depp, and Jim Carrey were considered for the role of the Baker.
- The smooth flow of dialogue and music throughout the film was one of the most challenging tasks during its creation. To make the transition from dialogue recorded in a pavilion to a song recorded in a recording studio seem truly seamless, one of two methods was used: either the actors sang half the song “live” on set (and in many cases, not half, but the entire song), or the end of the dialogue recording was taken to the studio, where the recording quality was improved.
- Prior to this, several attempts were made to adapt the famous musical for the screen. For example, in 1994, the process reached the stage of a script read-through at Penny Marshall's house, with Robin Williams, Goldie Hawn, and Cher; later, Columbia Pictures appointed Rob Minkoff as the film's director and negotiations were held with actors such as Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, and Susan Sarandon.
- Approximately 70% of the entire film was shot on a giant "forest" set in a pavilion at the Shepperton N Studio, located near London.
- Scenes were filmed in the forest around Grandmother’s house in "Bear Meadow" Park, where Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) sang the song "Now I Know." The exterior of Grandmother’s house was built by workers right there in the forest. For this, the thickest tree in the area was chosen, and a small door was attached to its trunk. A waterfall found in the park served as the backdrop for the song "Agony," sung by Cinderella’s Prince (Chris Pine) and Rapunzel’s Prince (Billy Magnussen), lamenting their failed romances.
- Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Penelope Cruz, Kate Winslet, Idina Menzel, Donna Murphy, and Miranda Richardson were considered for the role of the Witch. The role ultimately went to Meryl Streep.
- Bayfilde Estate, located in the village of the same name in Surrey, served as the exterior of Cinderella's (Anna Kendrick) house. The scene where the Prince finds the one whose foot fits the golden slipper was also filmed here. Scenes in the royal palace, where Cinderella marries her Prince, were filmed at Dover Castle, one of England's most majestic landmarks. The castle stands on the shore of the Pas-de-Calais (Strait of Dover), the narrowest part of the English Channel.
- Part of the filming took place in Windsor Great Park, located on the border of Berkshire and Surrey. In the park's dense forests, locations were found with powerful oaks that closely resembled the decorative trees that formed the scenery of the original Broadway musical. Many of the trees in Windsor are over 800 years old.
- The village of Hambleden, near Henley-on-Thames, became the Baker's hometown for the duration of filming. A centuries-old barn, located near the village, was transformed into Jack and his Mother's (Tracey Ullman) dilapidated farm.
- The film's music was recorded in two weeks at Angel Studios in London. An orchestra of 56 instruments was assembled from the ranks of the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic.
- To braid the six-meter-long braid, real hair of the appropriate color was brought from Germany – a bale weighing almost 3 kilograms. Then the hair strands were interwoven with very strong cotton and woven into Mackenzie Mauzy’s hairstyle. At one point, the producers suggested using acrylic hair, but makeup artist Peter King was vehemently opposed – he knew that acrylic would look unnaturally bright on film.
- Amanda Seyfried could have played the role of Cinderella.
- Filming took four months: from September to December 2013.
- Filming began in September 2013 in the woods of the Ashridge Estate near the town of Berkhamsted. Here, the scene in which Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) sang the song "Up There, Giants" after the giant stalks grew from the magic beans was filmed.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
