After years of hinting in the media and fans asking, a movie adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Wicked is being released on November 27, 2024! But what can even be expected from the long-anticipated film? Who’s in the cast? What’s being changed from the original play? Are people excited by the trailers or horrified at what’s being teased? Here’s everything we know so far:
While none of the original Broadway cast members have starring roles, many are said to be making cameos in the movie, including Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, the original Elphaba and Glinda. While this hasn’t been officially confirmed, fans are excited to see who shows up. As for the actual cast, the two leading actresses in the film are Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. Cynthia Erivo is an award-winning English actress, singer, songwriter, and producer who made her debut performance in a 2011 stage production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in London. She went on to gain recognition for her starring role in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, and she starred in the 2019 biopic Harriet.
I was honestly pretty surprised and a little nervous when I found out Ariana Grande would be playing Glinda, but I entirely forgot about the acting career she had before we all knew her as a singer. Grande first debuted as an actor in 2008 in the Broadway musical 13, then went on to star in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and the spin-off show Sam & Cat as Cat Valentine. She has held other TV and movie roles since, with her most recent being in the 2021 Netflix film Don’t Look Up. Ariana Grande first released music in December 2011 with her single “Put Your Hearts Up” and put out her first album, Yours Truly, in August 2013. Her most recent album, Eternal Sunshine, was released earlier this year and marked her sixth number-one album.
The rest of the cast consists of Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar, Ethan Slater as Boq, Michelle Yeoh as the theatrical Madame Morrible, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, Peter Dinklage as the voice of Dr. Dillamond (who is an anthropomorphic goat and will be one of the film’s many CGI features), and Marissa Bode as Nessarose. Overall, fans seem pleased with the cast, if a little disappointed that it doesn’t include members of the original Broadway production.
As with any film adaptation, changes are being made to the source material. Thanks to an interview Cynthia Erivo had with Collider, we know that the movie is aiming to pay tribute to the original book and play rather than be a direct copy. With the story being split into two movies (Wicked Part Two is set to come out on November 26, 2025), the writers and directors had more screen time to play around with, allowing them to lean further into the novel and fill in characters and settings. Obviously, the logistics of a movie are much different than that of a play, so viewers will get a more complete view of what the City of Oz and Shiz University look like (with the help of a lot of
CGI). As for the soundtrack, all 11 songs from Act 1 of the original soundtrack are there, from “No One Mourns the Wicked” to “Defying Gravity.” It had been rumored that 2-4 original songs were being added, but this seems to have been debunked.
And now for the big question: Are fans excited? In short, yes. It’s always exciting when a beloved book or play is turned into a movie. I personally think this in particular is exciting because it’s one more recorded musical out there. One of the biggest barriers to people enjoying musical theater is the sheer lack of access. It can be difficult and frustrating to find a theater near you with affordable tickets to a show you want to see on a date you can actually go see it, and there aren’t many full, decent quality, recorded musicals people can watch online or through streaming services. But as with any popular, non-movie franchise that is getting a movie adaptation, some fans are being critical of the details, picking apart everything from the trailer to the movie poster. The movie poster in particular had some fans worried due to the key details it was missing. It’s clearly meant to mimic the iconic playbill of the musical, but it isn’t an exact copy, with Elphaba missing her red lipstick, smirk, and not
hiding her face behind her hat. I honestly think the issues surrounding the poster have less to do with the poster itself and more to do with people worrying about the movie staying true to the story. As for the more trivial things, some wish the movie relied more on the practical effects of the play and less on CGI; the costume and wig design has received praise; and a lot of people are confused about the two-movie structure. While it seems obvious that part one would follow Act One and part two would follow Act Two, the trailer released on May 15 of this year has some people questioning that line of reasoning. Some of the teased scenes seem like things that should be part of Act Two, which is making people wonder if the trailer is simply showing scenes from both movies or if there is something more going on. The movie may be following a bit of a different structure, going between present time and flashbacks, but we won’t know until it comes out later this month.
Overall, fans are anxiously awaiting the release of the movie so they can cast their final judgment and answer the questions that have plagued them since the movie adaptation was announced in 2016. I think that, if nothing else, the music is going to be great. One thing’s for sure: November 25 is going to be an exciting (and very green) day in movie theaters across the country.
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