Jon M. Chu, director of the new Wicked movie parts 1 and 2, planned to be released on November 22, 2024, and November 21, 2025, has had the internet captivated by the stars, music, and controversy. Wicked is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, which originated from the book Wicked written by Gregory Maguire in 1
995. Since then the book has sold five million copies and in 2003 the first Wicked Musical premiered and has continued to run all around the world.
Wicked the musical and book takes place before The Wizard Of Oz and revolves around Elphaba, who will eventually become the Wicked Witch of the West. It retells her attending a magical high school as a green-skinned girl and meeting her enemy Glinda, the perfect pink princess who can’t handle not getting her way. Their relationship grows, as does Elphaba’s powers leading to conflict and betrayal.
Wicked, being based on the Broadway musical undoubtedly will include singing, but fans are worried about past musical to movie renditions such as Mean Girls and Wonka. While some have had rave reviews and were received relatively well others enraged people causing them to gain a lot of hate. Mean Girl‘s most frequent complaint was that it strayed from the original movie and musical too much, as well as most of the actors not having singing experience or proper training to sing Broadway-produced songs. Wonka, a prequel to Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, got a lot of backlash from Timothee Chalamet not being a trained singer and playing the main character in a musical movie. The internet has agreed that Wicked did a fantastic job casting Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as Glinda and Elphaba since both of them are singers first and then actors.
While no one is worried about Grande’s singing abilities, they are worried about her actions off-screen involving costar Ethan Slater who plays Boq Woodsman and is most known for his role as SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway.
When filming started, Grande was still trying to work on her relationship with her husband Dalton Gomez, but they had become long-distance since Grande flew to the UK to film and it wasn’t working out. Slater was also in a relationship at the beginning of filming with his high school sweetheart Lilly Jay, they were married and welcoming their first child in 2022. The secret relationship between Grande and Slater was first reported on March 27, 2023, by the Daily Mail from a source saying they were “all over each other” at Michell Yeoh’s Oscar party. Grande then starts to remove herself from Gomez by not wearing her wedding ring to Wimbledon and removing posts of him from her Instagram; Slater is still proudly posting Jay on his Instagram. On July 17, 2023, Grande and Gomez officially split and planned to divorce; three days later Slater and Grande are confirmed to be in a relationship together and that Slater has separated from his wife. Over the next few days, multiple sources came out saying Grande and Slater were very touchy and obvious on the set of Wicked like holding hands in between takes. Jay finally breaks her silence saying on Page Six that Grande is “Not a girls girl” and that her “family is just collateral damage.” After this post Slater and Grande became more public with their outings, going to Disney World, being spotted at a hotel, making out in a pub, and Grande attending a preview of Slater’s newest role in Spamalot on Broadway. Grande drops “Yes, And” on January 12, 2024, which fans can connect to Slater without him ever being name-dropped but also sets them on edge from thinking about her writing a song saying “yes, and?” about stealing Jay’s husband and child father. Most recently the couple was seen hugging and holding hands on the red carpet for the premiere of Wicked; the internet has mostly forgotten the origin of their relationship and now mostly supports them being together if it’s what makes them happy.
Grande isn’t the only one gaining attraction; Erivo who plays Elphaba has people talking about her comeback to a fan-made poster. A fan posted on their Instagram an edited version of the movie poster to make it look more like the Broadway version. Erivo then posted on her story with the edited version saying that it was “the wildest most offensive thing [she] has ever seen.” She goes on to say that by covering her eyes they are erasing her and that she is communicating with her eyes; She also proceeds to post the original poster to “cleanse [their] palette.” Easy to say people did not respond well to this. Erivo was then bashed for her outburst and fans across all medias were making memes and saying that she was overreacting. The director of the film came out and said she was his superhero as well as Grande commenting in an interview that Ai is tricky and fans are going to make edits. On October 28, Erivo was asked about the controversy by Entertainment Tonight and replied “I’m passionate about it and I know the fans are passionate about it and I think for me it was just a human moment of wanting to protect little Elphaba. I probably should have called my friends first but it’s fine”.
Fans were worried about the songs, understandably so because of how loved the original composition is. Small clips have been released and so far they have all been received well with the overall consensus being that the music sounds close enough to the original soundtrack and even has it’s own modern flair. The cast has also shown great dedication to perfecting the film with Grande and Erivo getting emotional in most interviews with how much care they have for their characters and the story.
Only time will tell if it is possible to capture the magic of Broadway on screen. You can buy tickets for Wicked Part 1 premiering on November 22 at your local AMC, Marcus Theaters, and Cinemark. The movie will be in theaters till January 2 and prices will vary depending on the theater but they should be around $17.99 for an adult ticket. So get out there to your local theater and experience what it’s like to defy gravity.
