Wicked • Oscars Week 2025
We hold each other's fingers and return to Oz
Along with Dune, Wicked was the only Best Picture nominee we had seen prior to Oscars Week. So this is a retrospective review, though Tiffany is taking her mom to see it this weekend.
Wicked (dir. John M. Chu)
Jon M. Chu’s Wicked brings the beloved Broadway musical to the big screen, offering a fresh perspective on the Land of Oz, in one of the most anticipated musical adaptations of all time.
The film stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Galinda/Glinda, exploring their complex friendship and the events that lead to their iconic roles as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.
Universal planned a Wicked adaptation for decades, after first securing the film rights to Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. But the film version languished in development hell, as filmmakers struggled with how to bring the biggest musical of the 21st Century to the screen.
Premiering on Broadway in 2003, Wicked was adapted by composer Stephen Schwartz and book writer Winnie Holzman. While keeping the novel’s core themes, the musical softened some of the novel’s adult themes and political edge and deepened the focus on the friendship – and eventual rivalry – between Elphaba and Glinda. Its soaring ballads, especially “Defying Gravity” and “For Good,” became iconic, and the show turned into a global sensation, becoming the fourth-longest running Broadway show of all time and grossing over $1 billion.
After several false starts, Universal hired John M. Chu to direct its Wicked adaptation. Chu gained widespread recognition with the smash hit Crazy Rich Asians (2018), but his experience also includes dance-centric films like Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) and Step Up 3D (2010), as well as In the Heights (2021), an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit.
Chu and Universal’s decided to split the story of Wicked into two films, suggesting an attempt to capture both the emotional power of the musical and the world-building depth of the book. The second installment, Wicked: For Good, is scheduled for release in November 2025.
Wicked garnered critical acclaim and significant box office success, becoming the third highest grossing film of the year. Besides Best Picture, Wicked received nominations for most of the technical categories (Best Production Design, Best Sound, etc.) as well as Cynthia Erivo for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Ariana Grande for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Why You Should See Wicked
Wicked is one of the great Broadway musicals of all time. The release of a film adaptation is a cultural moment for a generation. And this film is an excellent adaptation. In its best moments, it captures the magic of Hollywood musicals, where it’s just pure joy to watch talented people sing and dance.
The world of Oz presented here involves incredible production design and cinematography. One of the opening shots of the film is a brief crane shot over a field of tulips – to achieve the shot they planted 9 million tulips. The look and feel of the film is a worthy return to one of the most richly textured cinematic worlds ever created.
“Popular”
Tiffany loves musicals, has known the music from Wicked since it first premiered, and has seen Wicked on Broadway. She used to watch bootleg performances on YouTube, where to avoid being taken down for copyright infringement, would often be called “slime tutorials.”
I hadn’t seen Wicked or any slime tutorials, and hadn’t listened to the music, so I went into the movie fresh.
As a result, our experiences seeing Wicked in December were quite different. Tiffany scrutinized every decision of the adaptation, I got to simply enjoy a great musical. And over the course of the film, I realized I recognized most of the songs, and remembered that in the 2000s, this music was everywhere. Before Elsa and Moana, the neighbor kids were singing along to Elphaba and Galinda.
After seeing the film, we watched a lot of behind-the-scenes featurettes on YouTube. I highly recommend learning more about the production, because seeing the film the first time is a bit of a sensory overload. You’ll appreciate the craft and decisions that went into every detail. Start with this video by Architectural Digest about Nathan Crowley’s production design.
As with Dune, the decision to split Wicked into two parts means we have to wait until November to get the full story. Or watch a slime tutorial.
There are some nits I could pick with the film. It’s too long. The usually excellent Michelle Yeoh is miscast and underdelivers. The CGI gets sketchy during the finale, which undermines the impact of “Defying Gravity,” ending part 1 on a weird / off note.
But even so, it’s a pretty solid opening act, and an impressive movie musical adaptation.
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Tiffany hates when people in the audience sing along with a musical performance or a movie. So we were dreading seeing Wicked in theaters. Luckily there were only a few moments where a guy nearby was humming along, so Tiffany only needed to glare a once or twice.