The movie adaptation of Wicked came out on November 22, 2024 starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The original Wicked musical first appeared on Broadway October 8, 2003 with Idina Menzel and Christan Chenoweth. The musical was inspired by Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West.
According to Playbill.com The original stage production of Wicked was a huge hit reaching new records of profit, making 3 million dollars in a week. It was only a matter of time before they made the iconic musical into a movie. After years of waiting, Wicked the movie has finally hit theaters. Deadline.com states that the movie has grossed $358 million, falling 4th place in highest grossing musical to movie adaptations.
This movie deserves the hype. Seeing the movie in theaters, it felt like I was watching the play on stage for the first time again. The on-stage musical is extremely similar to the movie. The movie starts off with the iconic opening song ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’, and the set immediately immerses you in the story. You feel like you’ve just stumbled upon Munchkinland as you watch Glinda descend from her bubble and tell the tale of her dearest friend.
The costume choices were beautiful, especially for Glinda, the outfits she wears are flawless, and all of her clothes are flowy with no sharp edges or intense colors, everything is soft. In contrast, Elphaba’s costume designs were very sharp and dark. These contrasts are effective in showing their different personalities before we really get to know them. It was very impressive to see how effective the costume design was in this movie. Every costume perfectly matched the tone of the situation.
Throughout the movie, we see the bond between Glinda and Elphaba grow stronger. We really get to see how well these actresses have portrayed their characters. The writers, designers, and producers of this movie have already done a flawless job with the set, costumes, and script but seeing Grande and Erivo really become their characters was moving. You can really see the chemistry between the two actors.
The heartwarming relationships reminded me of when I first saw the stage performance of Wicked, seeing these actors becoming their characters, it almost feels real. It’s not just in the movie either, Grande and Erivo have shown they are friends on and off the set which makes their interactions that much more real.
The music was on point, the vocals were perfect, not a single note out of place. The well known song ‘What is This Feeling’ was the one song I saw change the most from musical to movie adaptation. The choreography was changed drastically, towards the end of the song Glinda is seen with a group of Shiz students tapping books and stomping their feet in a rhythmic fashion, this scene has taken the media by storm with hundreds of people trying to recreate the dance.
My favorite song was ‘Dancing Through Life’ . This song takes us to the most swankified place in all of Shiz, The Ozdust Ballroom where the characters have been invited to a party by new student Fyiero. There is a moment during the song where Glinda gives Elphaba her signature pointy witch hat to wear to Fyiero’s party, Elphaba believes she’s had a change of heart and their friendship begins to blossom.
The movie comes to an end with the infamous duet, Defying Gravity. We are left on a cliffhanger which will be picked up in the second part of the movie, releasing on November 21, 2025. Some people have claimed that this movie will never live up to the musical, that there is nothing like watching a cast of characters perform these songs live, and nothing can replicate that feeling.
As someone who has seen the musical multiple times I can say that, while this movie does an amazing job at capturing the essence of the musical, there isn’t anything like watching it live.
Many criticize the movie for being too long. The original show runs around 2 hours and 45 minutes and the first part of the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes. I do think that the length of each song was painfully dragged out, especially Defying Gravity. It will never be exactly like the musical. I can see how people are upset about the length, however that does not deny the beautiful work that was done on this movie.
The extended run time is for elaboration on Elphaba’s childhood that we haven’t seen before. For people who aren’t able to afford to fly out to New York and purchase tickets to see Wicked on Broadway, this movie is the next best thing at a fraction of the cost. This is one of the best stage productions to movie adaptation I’ve ever seen, if you’ve never seen the musical go to your local movie theater and buy tickets to Wicked.
