The moment is finally here, musical theatre fans – only two weeks to go until the film adaptation of Wicked comes out on 22 November 2024.
ICYMI: Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz – the film tells the story of the witches of Oz before the arrival of Dorothy and Toto. Ariana Grande stars as Glinda The Good Witch, while Broadway's Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba, the greenified Wicked Witch of the West.
In the first full-length trailer, we get a glimpse into the reinvented world of Oz:
“Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them,” says Ariana Grande's Glinda as the trailer opens. We then see the very popular Glinda, the very dashing Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), and the very green Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) all arriving at Shiz University for their first year.
As the trailer goes on, we see Glinda and Elphaba forming an unlikely friendship before greater political powers threaten to take them on their separate paths.
Throughout the trailer, we also get to hear a snippet of Grande's rendition of the song “Popular” as well as Erivo's take on the iconic “Defying Gravity.” So far, this musical adaption looks positively epic.
Here's everything else we know about Wicked so far.
What is Wicked about?
Wicked is the Wizard of Oz prequel, and is set before Dorothy arrives in Oz and told from the perspective of the witches in the Land of Oz. It premiered on Broadway in 2003 starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth and proved a huge success, with a film adaption being in the pipeline since 2004.
Here in the UK, Wicked is also one of the West End's most successful shows, running at the Apollo Theatre in London since 2006.
The pair met while filming Wicked.
Who stars in Wicked?
Cynthia Erivo, who found fame in The Colour Purple on Broadway, is taking on the role of Elphaba, the misunderstood green girl who will eventually become the fearsome Wicked Witch of the West in Oz.
Ariana Grande plays Glinda the Good Witch, Elphaba's best friend who takes a very different path.
Ariana and Cynthia previously celebrated the announcement of their involvement on Instagram, with Ariana sending her co-star a bunch of green and pink flowers (the signature colours of Glinda and Elphaba): “Dear Cynthia, honoured doesn’t even begin to cover it. I cannot wait to hug you. See you in Oz,” she wrote on the attached note.
Instagram content
But eagle-eyed fans actually think Ari predicted the role a whole 10 years ago, in a tweet from 2011.
Twitter account Ariana World HQ – run by Ari fans – spotted the tweet that read: "Loved seeing Wicked again... amazing production! Made me realise again how badly I want 2 play Glinda at some point in my life! #DreamRole," she said.
Jonathan Bailey, who we all know and love from Bridgerton, takes on the role of Fiyero, the love interest of both Elphaba and Glinda.
Michelle Yeoh, who took home an Oscar in 2023 for Everything Everywhere All At Once, plays Madam Morrible, a scheming teacher, while Jeff Goldblum plays the (not so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
“Why do you care so much whose d*** I ride?”
.jpg)
Ethan Slater (aka Spongebob, aka Ari's new boyfriend) plays Boq, a munchkin with an unrequited crush on Glinda.
Bowen Yang and Marissa Bode also star.
When is Wicked coming out?
The film was originally meant to be released on 22 December 2021, but due to production delays related to COVID-19, everything was pushed back.
Then it was announced that the film would be released on 27 November 2024. However, this has now been brought forward, and UK audiences will be able to enjoy the film at the same time as US audiences with Wicked coming out on 22 November 2024.
Instagram content
The red carpet premiere for the film will be in Sydney, Australia on 3 November 2024.
And that's not all. Back in April 2022, the film's director, Jon Chu, released a statement that revealed there'll be not one Wicked movie, but two.
Yep, you heard it right the first time! Explaining that they'll be released "on successive Christmas holidays beginning December 2024," he also wrote: "Here's what happened: as we prepared this production over the last year, it became increasingly clear that it would be impossible to wrestle the story of WICKED into a single film without doing some real damage to it."
"As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years," he continued. "So we decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one WICKED movie but TWO!!!! With more space, we can tell the story of WICKED as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprises to the journeys of these beloved characters."
X content
Is there a trailer for Wicked?
Yes! Watch it here and prepared to get very, very excited:
The first teaser gave us a peek at some yellow bricks, a towering emerald green city, a truly magical gondola and, of course, a very green anti-heroine.
As the trailer begins, we hear Erivo singing the iconic opening lines of Defying Gravity. Then, a voiceover from Jeff Goldblum, who plays the Wizard: “The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.” We then see flashes of Elphaba and Glinda meeting at university and forming an unlikely friendship. We also get our first glimpses of Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible and Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero. The trailer ends with Erivo delivering a guttural rendition of the famous riff from the end of the song. Absolute chills!
The second, full-length trailer featured a whole lot more detail.
What is the Wicked poster controversy?
As the release of the film draws closer, tensions seem to be mounting. The official poster for the film adaptation of Wicked was released in early October, and let's just say it was met with mixed reactions. While many fans poured on praise for the poster, which shows Cynthia Erivo looking straight into the camera with Ariana Grande whispering in her ear, other people were quick to draw comparisons to the original for the 2003 musical.
X content
The main differences are that in the original, the character of Elphaba has a wicked (pun intended) smirk on her face and her eyes are obscured by her hat. It's also noticeable that in the original, she is wearing striking red lipstick, whereas in the new poster her lips are green.
Fans were quick to edit the poster featuring Erivo and Grande and make new versions which are more like the original. But in a series of Instagram stories, Erivo slammed the fan-made versions as the "wildest, most offensive thing I have seen.”
“Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me,” she said. “And that is just deeply hurtful.” Erivo also called out other memes about the upcoming film, calling them “degrading.” “None of this is funny. None of this is cute,” she wrote.
While the poster has divided opinion, the excitement around the release of the film is still going strong.
