From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

Winnie Holsman and Stephen Schwartz created one of the most successful Broadway shows of all time.

So it made sense for Universal to give them some creative freedom when bringing Wicked to the big screen.

This was an unusual situation in many ways.

You know, John Chu was our choice.

The casting?

The casting was our choice, you know, with John, of course.

But we were given such a sense of trust.

And I think all of those kinds of things show in the movie.

Jeff London talks to playwright Winnie Holsman and composer Stephen Schwartz about the long

gestating film adaptation of their beloved stage show.

They shed light on the decision to split the story into two movies and why, despite

the stage show's massive scale, they sometimes felt like they were creating a small, intimate

production. But first

we banter. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. I am joined by my partner in banter,

Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. Hi there. So, I think the big story of the week is clearly

the Comcast move to spin off a lot of their cable channels.

We're talking about things including MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, E, Sci-Fi.

So this will be a new company.

It's not named yet.

This resulted in the very foreseeable elevation of Donna Langley to oversee all content at NBC Universal,

the stuff that is not part of the new company.

...