Check out one veteran Disney animator's concept art for a Wicked movie

By Dan Selcke | December 12, 2013 | 5:40pm

Aux Features Film

Minkyu Lee is a Disney artist who worked as an animator on The Princess and the Frog and Wreck-It Ralph and as a director on the Oscar-nominated animated short Adam and Dog. In 2008, still an intern, he was trying to land a spot in Disney's Visual Development department. To show off his skills, he created a portfolio of character designs for a hypothetical movie: an animated adaptation of Wicked, the hugely successful stage musical that's been running on Broadway since 2003. Now he's posted his incredibly charming designs on two Tumblr pages.

Industry types have been trying to turn the Wicked musical into a movie for nearly as long as it's been around, and although the Wizard of Oz-themed spinoff market is currently stuffed beyond sense, it must be pointed out that Stephen Schwartz's all-singing, all-dancing take on the Wicked Witch of the West's past did get there first. Lee's designs make a good argument for giving the property to Disney and letting them animate it, since animated musicals about empowered princesses are kind of their thing.