Wicked

Few Broadway musicals have the lasting and widespread cultural impact of Wicked. Loosely based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel of the same name, the show functions as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz told from the perspectives of two witches, the one-day Wicked Witch of the West and the future Glinda the Good. With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (stage’s Godspell and Pippin, film’s Pocahontas and Enchanted) and book by Winnie Holzman (creator of TV’s “My So-Called Life”), the musical premiered in San Francisco in 2003 and transitioned to Broadway by year’s end.

If, like me, you’ve not seen the show on stage, you’ve still likely become familiar with its story and music second-hand, from covers on “Glee” and “Saturday Night Live” to plot points of “Ugly Betty” and “Brothers & Sisters” to a Drake song sample to NBC and PBS concert specials. To escape its reach altogether, there is much you would have to have avoided over the past 21 years. Thanksgiving Day parades, commercials, “Billy on the Street”, etc.

Considering the popularity, it’s long been a question of “not if, but when” a feature film treatment would ensue. That day has finally come, twelve years after the adaptation was officially announced by Universal Pictures. This movie version of Wicked is for musical theatre kids past and present what 2000s Marvel Cinematic Universe works were for comic book fans: an ambitious transmogrification of something that has inspired countless passions to pop culture’s highest stage.

Longtime fans of the musical have reason to be protective of their favorite and skeptical of the film adaptation, which hails from director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights), stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the lead roles, and only adapts the first act of the stage production, with Wicked Part Two to follow a year from now. Despite that approach, a tact employed and then seemingly regretted during the 2010s last lap of the YA blockbuster boom, this first Wicked feels sufficiently self-contained and epic, running a staggering but fast-moving 160 minutes.

The film opens with the death of the Wicked Witch of the West, something that was celebrated at the end of The Wizard of Oz, one of the first and still most beloved of blockbuster film musicals. In the world of Wicked, the literally bubbly and self-involved Glinda (Grande) is asked if she knew the Wicked Witch, prompting the beloved pink-clad good witch to reflect on their time together at Shiz University.

Elphaba (Erivo) arrives at the school as an instant outcast, her unusual green skin inviting all kinds of gossip and grousing. But with her powers and poise, the freshman witch catches the eye of the school’s headmistress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), who assigns her to room in the remote private tower of the fellow incoming freshman then called Galinda, a head-turning diva trying her hardest to impress Morrible.

With their opposite upbringings and vibes, Elphaba and Galinda clash, but their relationship and priorities evolve, until both end up heading to see the great and powerful Oz (Jeff Goldblum), a grandiose figure and iconic location with which the film ends on a mild cliffhanger.

A 2024 Wicked movie is vastly different from what we’d have gotten in the early 2000s. Such an adaptation likely would have retained the celebrated leading ladies of the original stage show, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who do turn up here for a fan-friendly, shared musical cameo. Here, instead the show’s weighty co-lead roles are performed competently if not quite indelibly by stage and screen-seasoned Erivo and pop star Grande. Casting such iconic roles is a minefield that has produced no shortage of opinions for and against these two, but it feels like Chu and company have found a happy balance between talent and star power. At least in this first film, Grande has the showier role, getting to deliver laughs with her tone-deaf, egocentric asides. Both actresses are up to the considerable musical tasks at hand and can endure the inevitable daunting comparisons to Menzel and Chenoweth they’ll face from those who know the original cast soundtrack by heart.

The film as a whole (or half a whole) is perfectly serviceable. The production is expectedly full of color and life. No technical category seems beyond its reach for Oscar consideration, with the vibrant costume and production design especially standing out, as well as the robust soundtrack guaranteed to draw a nomination in the Academy’s one surviving sound category.

Chu cut his teeth on studio gigs, including a trio of sequels (Step Up 2 The Streets, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Now You See Me 2) whose predecessors he did not work on. We’ve seen enough from the director that you’re more likely to get a polished, marketable mainstream picture delivered on time and on budget than some artistic triumph. Though his output has undoubtedly improved and it’s easy to declare Wicked his best effort to date, he still stops short of a towering achievement, something that many are hoping for here and many will probably, unobjectively see. Chu’s Wicked is no masterpiece, but it is a fine crowd-pleaser that is sure to become the highest-grossing live-action musical since…the first Mamma Mia!, excluding Disney remakes and the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

Given the buzz and anticipation surrounding the film, which drew Broadway-style applause after select musical numbers at my packed advance screening, this probably will gross a billion dollars worldwide, a figure only ever reached by five musicals, all of them Disney-distributed (the two Frozen movies and the 2010s remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King). And, unless somehow the early raves are not echoed by the general public, Universal will get to do it all over again next November. The studio must be feeling great at a time when doubt hangs over the future of moviegoing and just last month the seeming slam dunk of the season, Joker: Folie a Deux, landed with a thud, all the while hiding the fact that it was, improbably, a musical.

In direct contrast to Warner’s flop, Wicked is a musical for people who love musicals. Its songbook hasn’t aged at all in two decades and its themes and witticisms are about as timeless as the ones still found in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, celebrating its 85th anniversary this year. Only those with an irrational hatred of musical theatre will be immune to this jaunty production’s considerable charms.