The upcoming film adaptation of the 2003 musical Wicked has been split into two parts.
On Tuesday, director Jon M. Chu took to social media to announce that the Wicked movie will be divided into two installments.
“Here’s what happened: as we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of ‘Wicked’ into a single film without doing some real damage to it,” Chu wrote in a statement he shared on social media. “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. 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 surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.”
What will the Wicked movies be about?
Like the Wicked musical, which is based on the characters and setting of the classic 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz, Chu’s Wicked movies will tell the story of everything leading up to Dorothy Gale’s arrival in Oz.
The Wicked movies will follow two unlikely friends, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (whose name later changes to Glinda the Good Witch), whose relationship struggles through their opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard’s corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba’s private fall from grace.
Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the music and lyrics to the original musical, is adapting the Wicked screenplay with Winnie Holzman. Marc Platt, who produced the Broadway musical, is producing the big-screen adaptation.
Who will star in the Wicked movies?
The Wicked movies will star Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in the lead roles of Glinda and Elphaba, respectively.
In the original Broadway run of Wicked, Glinda was played by Kristin Chenoweth, while Elphaba was portrayed by Idina Menzel.
When will the Wicked movies be released?
At the end of his latest statement, Chu revealed that the first installment of Wicked will come out during the Christmas holidays in December 2024, while the second part will be released in December 2025. Read Chu’s full statement below:
Special #Wicked Movie Announcement… ✌🏼🎬🧹🌸💚sent from my OzPhone: pic.twitter.com/4qPpvVD4rR
— Jon M. Chu (@jonmchu) April 26, 2022