MOVIE PREVIEW – One of the world’s most popular stage musicals moves to the big screen to become the biggest movie event of the year. The sequel to Wicked, which is now in cinemas, will be shown one year later, in November 2025.

Wicked is the untold story of the witches of Oz, starring Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo (Harriet, The Crimson on Broadway) as Elphaba, the unusual green a young woman misunderstood because of her skin color, who has yet to discover her true strength. The other main character of the film is Grammy-winning, multi-platinum superstar Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda. Her character is a spoiled and ambitious young woman, but she is still searching for her true heart and soul.
The two meet as students at Shiz University in the wonderland of Oz and develop a deep friendship. After they meet Oz, the great wizard, their friendship comes to a crossroads and their lives continue on separate paths. With an unwavering desire for popularity, Glinda succumbs to the lure of power, while Elphaba is determined to stay true to herself and those around her, with surprising consequences. During their special adventures, their destinies will finally be fulfilled, they will become the Good Witch of the North and the Wicked Witch of the West in the kingdom of Oz.

This is how it began

In 1995, almost a century after the publication of L. Frank Baum’s timeless classic, Oz, the wonder of wonders, Gregory Maguire reimagined the world of the fairy tale. Wicked became an instant bestseller. The story is about the witches of Oz, but the story takes place years before Dorothy came among them. The musical Boradwayn debuted in 2003, starring Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. With 10 Tony nominations, including Best Musical, Wicked has become a defining cult phenomenon.

Wicked has been playing to full houses on Broadway for more than 20 years and has captivated audiences in many countries around the world. In the world of musicals, it is almost impossible to find a piece that is about the friendship of two women. Wicked has grossed around $6 billion and has become a part of our collective conscience because it makes us think deeply about how we relate to each other and the world.

At first glance, Wicked is the tale of how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda Upland became Glinda the Good. We can follow the unusual friendship of two young women – one is ostracized, the other is adored – but the story is also about how the uncontrollable desire for power shapes their lives and how it affects the fate of Oz’s trust. However, in the depths of the tale, we can find darker shadows and more thoughtful truths. Wicked also features the rise of an insidious fascist movement that scapegoats the talking animals of Oz, holding them responsible for all evil by literally stripping them of their voices. There are many references to the development of the Nazi Third Reich, as Wicked reveals to the audience how a lying charismatic leader can lead the masses to follow unbelievably vile things driven by fear and hatred. betraying their own loved ones.

Producer Marc Platt was approached many times over the years with the idea of ​​making a movie out of the musical. For a long time, Platt did not feel that the matter was relevant, but recently the moment arrived. The production of the play opened up new opportunities for the creators, since the stage can create an independent world, but it cannot guide the viewer to as many places as the cinema. “The film allows us to introduce the rich worlds of the tale – Elfland, Shiz University, the magnificent Emerald City and the wizard’s throne room,” says Platt. – We can show a lot of things that cannot be shown in the theater, since, for example, only the camera can fly together with flying monkeys. In this way, a special experience could be created from the stage production.”

Two motion pictures were born from Wicked so that the creators could show the audience everything they were interested in and bring forward the many original ideas and thoughts that arose over the years, but could not be put into a stage production due to time and technical limitations. it didn’t fit. “In the first movie, we’re going to tell how Elphaba becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and in the second movie, we’re going to see how her friend Glinda becomes truly good,” explains Platt.

The filmmakers will not disappoint the fans of the stage production, because not a single scene was cut from the play, and all the songs that were originally played are performed. The film production deepens and expands the world of the stage work. “Our job is to honor the rich material that makes this musical so popular, but beyond that, to provide much more as a cinematic experience,” explains Platt. “The amazed audience enters an amazing fairy-tale world: monkeys fly, witches get on broomsticks, and magic flows from everywhere.”

A new chapter begins

To make the film, Marc Platt asked the same co-creators with whom he made the musical a success: Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for the stage play, and Oscar^®-winning music and lyricist Stephen Schwartz.

“We’ve been preparing for this movie with Winnie for years,” says Schwartz. – The story of Wicked speaks to people in an elegant language, and everyone learns their own lessons from it. Each of our characters carries some deep-seated secret that everyone can identify with. This is what this work is about – it shows what lies beneath the surface.”

Schwartz and Holzman have known each other so long and worked together so much that they can literally finish each other’s sentences. “Winnie and I are telling this story together,” Schwartz continues. – Sometimes with dialogues, which is Winnie’s resort, sometimes with songs, which is my genre. When the roommates’ first song together (the two main characters, Glinda and Elphaba are roommates in the university dorm – the translation) somehow didn’t work out for me, Winnie came up with the idea of ​​what if their song it would not be about ‘love at first sight’, but about ‘hate you at first sight’. Because it’s a miracle when two people see each other and fall in love, but it can be just as intoxicating when you meet someone and immediately know you’re going to hate them for the rest of your life.”

“When we analyzed this complicated, contradictory and extremely emotional friendship while writing the stage musical, it became clear to us that this is what this story is really about,” says Holzman. – The starting point is that you meet someone, and that changes your life. The story then continues as these two young women want to make the world a better place in their own way… and then it becomes clear where that intention leads.”

For Holzman and Schwartz, the film adaptation offered a huge range of new possibilities. “It turns out that there will be two movies of the musical, which gives us enough space to keep what we want to keep, while being able to expand more thoroughly on everything we think is important. We’re telling the same story, but it’s a much bigger and more nuanced whole.”

This is how Jon M. Chu won Oz

As a child, the director of the film, Jon M. Chut, was often taken by his parents to the opera and various performances of traveling theaters, thus becoming one of the earliest fans of Wicked. After all, he saw the musical in San Francisco before it moved to Broadway. But this was not the only thing that qualified him to be entrusted with directing the movie version of Wicked.

“Jon is an amazing visual director, but more importantly, he has a noble heart and soul to tell such a story,” explains Platt. – Wicked is about what makes us human, and Jon was born to bring such stories to the screen.”
Chu’s goal was to bring Wicked to the audience in a new light, i.e. take a different form than the musical. “I brought special artists together, both in front of and behind the camera,” says the director. – People who can sing and act, and while shouting about them in reality, that they really were thrown from the land of Oz. Everyone is a little buzzed and cocky in this select team, because I wanted to make a film about such characters.”

Characters of the story

It was obvious to the creators of the film that only Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo could play the main roles, who were invited to audition separately, and the first rehearsal together took place at a dinner party at Chu’s home. The host was joined by producer Marc Platt, composer Stephen Schwartz and screenwriter Winnie Holzman. “Stephen came over to the piano and suggested, ‘Cynthia, Ari, let’s sing For Good,'” says the director. (For Good is the No. 1 song from the musical Wicked, sung together by Elphaba and Glinda at the end of the story as a farewell when they part ways for good. It has had an incredible career in American mass culture: in other entertainment industry productions and at events watched by millions on TV is also regularly heard in the interpretation of popular artists. – trans.) – Cynthia and Ari never rehearsed together, but they put on such a show in the room that my four-year-old daughter regularly dropped her jaw to the floor. It was an amazing experience, how they were able to tune into each other immediately.”

“They’re complete opposites, and maybe that’s why the chemistry between them works so well,” says Platt. – This is exactly what we need for the story: Elphaba and Glinda live in other worlds and they have to find their way to each other. In the end, they have to make sacrifices for the other.”

The actresses literally made sacrifices for each other, so to speak, they took their skin to the market. “We went to get tattoos together,” says Grande. “I had an E – like Elphaba – sewn on my calf in the middle of a heart, and she had a G – like Glinda – made for herself.”

According to Grande, their roles in the film will stay with them at least as long as their tattoos.

Source: UIP