Trailer
Plot summary
A Baker and his Wife want a child, but a curse the Witch laid on his family keeps them childless. Years earlier the Witch caught the Baker's father robbing her garden and demanded the baby his wife was carrying; he also stole her magic beans, and her own mother punished her with age and ugliness. Now she offers a bargain: bring her four things for a potion, and the curse will lift. She needs a milk-white cow, a blood-red cape, corn-yellow hair and a slipper of pure gold, none of which she can touch herself. So the couple goes into the woods, where Jack is selling his cow Milky-White, Red Riding Hood carries her cape to her grandmother's, Rapunzel lets down her hair, and Cinderella flees from her Prince in gold slippers.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Into the Woods (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To help make the film on a tight budget, Johnny Depp agreed, as a favour to Disney and to Rob Marshall, to a "boarding" arrangement under which he appeared in a minor role for $1 million instead of his typical $20 million fee for a starring role.
- Meryl Streep had instituted a personal "no witch" rule after she turned 40 and was offered three witch roles, but broke it to do a Sondheim role again, having appeared in the original production of Sondheim's The Frogs as a student at Yale University.
- After testing loose, flowing hair he found "uncontrollable", Peter King had 27 wefts of real hair woven into a 30-foot braid for Rapunzel, working with distributors in Germany and England for enough real Russian hair; braiding it took three people.
- Rob Marshall's interest was rekindled in 2011 by a speech President Barack Obama gave to victims' families on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which seemed to evoke the message of "No One Is Alone"; he called the musical "a fairy-tale for the post-9/11 generation".
- Lilla Crawford was confirmed as Little Red Riding Hood in September 2013 despite earlier reports suggesting Brownlee; she auditioned for Rob Marshall via Skype, was offered the role within two hours and was on a flight to London the next day.
- The film earned $31.1 million over three days, $46.1 million including its Christmas Day gross, the highest opening weekend for a film based on a Broadway musical, taking the record from Mamma Mia! and holding it until Wicked arrived in 2024.
- Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Pine entered negotiations to play the Princes, but Gyllenhaal dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with another film, Nightcrawler, and was replaced by Billy Magnussen.
