The smash-hit Broadway show turns blockbuster as the Wicked movie drops in cinemas.
From the cast of Wicked 2024 starring Cynthia Erivo (Chaos Walking, Pinocchio), Ariana Grande (Men in Black: International, Zoolander 2), Michelle Yeoh (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and Jeff Goldblum (Thor: Ragnarok), to the plot, songs, trivia and movie shoot, here are all the reasons you’ll want a dose of black magic.
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writer: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
based on Wicked by Stephen Schwartz, Winne Holzman and Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Stars: Cytnthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum.
Genre: Musical, Fantasy, Romance
Themes: Witch, Wizard of Oz, Magic
Elphaba, a misunderstood young woman because of her green skin, and Galinda, a popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. After an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads.
It is the first installment of a two-part film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name by Stephen Schwartz and Holzman, which was loosely based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel, a reimagining of the Oz books and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
It received positive reviews.
The sequel, Wicked: For Good, is scheduled for release on November 21, 2025.
In Cinemas Now
MIX UP REVIEWS:
Stewart - ★★★★★
"Excellent production values and performances, Ariana Grande is a revelation! It's a little longer than it's required to be but this is a toe-tapping exercise in friendship and strong female roles. The songs are all as excellent as you remember them!"
Have you seen it yet?
Wicked 2024 buzz - Why is everybody talking about the new Wicked movie?
Witches. They get a bad rep in the movies. For every squeaky-clean PR dream like Hermione Granger, there’s a thousand cackling hags turning kids into mice (Roald Dahl’s The Witches), syphoning eternal youth (Stardust), hijacking ballet schools (Suspiria) and ruining camping trips (The Blair Witch Project).
Looming over them all, of course, is The Wicked Witch of the West, who we can all agree definitely deserved to be melted into a toxic puddle in 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz.
But didn’t you ever ask yourself how TWWOTW went so bad? In 1995, US novelist Gregory Maguire imagined a more sympathetic backstory for the villain in his best-seller Wicked: The Life And Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. And by 2003, this Oz spin-off eclipsed the original when Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked stage musical opened on Broadway – where only The Lion King has shifted more tickets.
If you watched Matilda, West Side Story or The Color Purple, you’ll know musical-to-movie crossovers are red-hot right now. So park your broomstick and fill your cauldron with popcorn, as the Wicked movie goes big-screen.
What is Wicked 2024 about? Plot and story
You probably know the basic beats of L. Frank Baum’s original 1900 story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with its yellow brick roads and flying monkeys. Wicked leads us back to that fantastical kingdom – think Narnia on steroids – but rewinds the reels and lets two very different young witches tell this origin story.
Green-skinned from birth, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is shy, geeky, misunderstood and the product of a broken home. She couldn’t be further than perky, popular and pink-clad Glinda Upland (Ariana Grande). Despite this personality clash, the pair end up roommates at Shiz University, where the formidable Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) rules all.
Her magical talents get her noticed. But an encounter with the Wizard Of Oz turns Elphaba into a fugitive and pariah – and Glinda must decide whether their friendship is worth fighting the status quo for.
Why is the Wicked movie two parts?
Some stories are too big to bite off in one go – so director Jon M. Chu (Now You See Me 2, Crazy Rich Asians) is holding back Wicked Part 2 for November 2025. “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,” he explained.
“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!”
Cast of Wicked 2024 - Who is playing Elphaba in the Wicked movie?
London-born Cynthia Erivo is no stranger to Broadway, having won a Tony for her portrayal of Celie in The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017. As the actress told Jimmy Fallon, she had also been in the audience for the Wicked musical. "I saw it the first time when I was 25, and I took myself for my birthday. I took myself on a date!”
A decade later, director Jon M. Chu revealed in a Universal featurette that Erivo was one of the final auditions for the Wicked film: “She was so raw and vulnerable, I couldn't get her out of my head.”
Ariana Grande in Wicked - How good is the pop princess as Glinda?
The "Thank U, Next" singer saw Wicked on Broadway aged ten, and was so desperate to be cast that she reportedly arrived hours early to auditions. “I have never wanted something as badly as I did this," Grande told one interviewer. "I worked every day with [vocal coaches] to transform my voice. My singing voice, everything about me I had to kind of deconstruct to prove to them that I could handle taking on this other person. I kind of had to completely erase pop star Ari.”
Grande isn’t the only big name in the cast. Look out for Michelle Yeoh as the sternest headmistress since Miss Trunchbull. Jonathan Bailey (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Testament of Youth) plays Shiz University’s swoonsome prince Fiyero Tigelaar, while The Hunger Games’ Peter Dinklage (Avengers: Infinity War) is the voice of goat professor Doctor Dillamond.
Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum plays the not-so-wonderful Wizard hiding behind the smoke and mirrors. “The Wicked show just kills me,” the Jurassic Park star told Kelly Clarkson on her chat show. “The last time I went was in London where we shot the movie, and I was crying throughout the whole thing.”
Wicked movie age rating - Who can watch Wicked 2024?
When he dropped in on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Jeff Goldblum revealed he’d tried to show his young sons the original 1939 Wizard of Oz movie, but they freaked and tapped out early (“It was too scary for them. That witch is terrifying. Margaret Hamilton, terrifying”). The Wicked movie dials down the fear factor – if your kids can handle the Harry Potter series, there should be no tears at bedtime.
Wicked film soundtrack - Which songs should we listen out for?
As Jon M. Chu told Vanity Fair, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo insisted on singing live (“Those girls were like, ‘[screw] the pre-records!’”). With Grande having covered "Popular" on her 2013 album, Yours Truly, you know Glinda’s showstopper is in safe hands. But listen out for the belting "Defying Gravity", which Erivo sings while spinning on a wire – without missing a note!
“First of all, it’s difficult to [sing] that on the ground, let alone in the air,” Chu told Variety. “But she has a masterful command over her air delivery, how she can breathe and execute those notes for that long.”
Wicked movie trivia - What's a fun fact about the Wicked film?
After winning the part, Ariana Grande got a Glinda tattoo on her right hand. “It's from the original L. Frank Baum book,” she told Allure. “I waited forever to fill up this hand. And I thought, ‘I'm gonna wait for the right thing to come along,’ and yeah, that felt very right.”
“I want people to see Wicked and experience it in a way they’ve never experienced before,” says director Jon M. Chu. “I want them to feel what I felt going into that movie theatre for the first time. I want to make them laugh, to make them sing, to make them feel that after they’ve watched it, they’ve been changed for good.”
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