WICKED Trailer (2024) Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo

WICKED Trailer (2024) Ariana Grande, Cynthia ErivoShow more

WICKED Trailer (2024) Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Musical, Fantasy Movie
© 2024 - Universal Pictures

Universal’s upcoming adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked” showcased some additional footage at this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas, bringing down the house with a first look at Cynthia Erivo donning the iconic hat of the Wicked Witch.

Erivo joined director Jon M. Chu and the film’s cast, including costar Ariana Grande, at the event.

“I never could have fathomed that I would have the opportunity to play the Wicked Witch,” Erivo said. “We have performed this song publicly and privately for many years, and now here we are together, getting the chance to perform these songs for an audience around the world.”

The sneak peek showed sweeping shots of the colorful world of Oz, along with Elphaba and Glinda’s turbulent first days together at Shiz University, where they are training to be witches. Elphaba develops far faster than Glinda, showing incredible potential and gaining the attention of Madame Morrible, played by Michelle Yeoh.

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We also see Glinda offer Elphaba the most horrible item in her wardrobe: her grandmother’s hat. That hat is the pointed witch’s hat that ends up becoming the iconic symbol of the Wicked Witch of the West, and one that the Wizard of Oz uses to turn Elphaba into a villain to preserve his power.

“I’m not afraid,” Elphaba tells Glinda. “It is the wizard who should be afraid of me.”

As the film’s director said onstage, “I was a Silicon Valley kid, and in a stroke of luck I was there when ‘Wicked’ was workshopped at the Curran Theater in San Francisco. I related to the story of Elphaba, the witch who is judged for how she looks, but I never dreamed that I would get my dream job of directing it for the big screen.”

The film’s cast also includes Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode and Bowen Yang. And, newly announced at CinemaCon, actor Peter Dinklage has joined the cast in the role of Dr. Dillamond.

“We dream very big for ‘Wicked,’” Chu added. “We wanted to honor the source material… but we also wanted to create a new world of its own, one that creates sights and sounds and performances that will lift your soul and occasionally break your heart.”

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A brief teaser was unveiled during Super Bowl LVIII at the beginning of February, though there’s been little else since filming concluded. This marks the first significant look at the film and its colorful world before its Thanksgiving debut.

Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, “Wicked” received critical acclaim on Broadway when it debuted in 2003 for its radical reinterpretation of “The Wizard of Oz.” Set before and during the events of the classic L. Frank Baum novel and its legendary MGM film adaptation, “Wicked” presents Elphaba not as a villain, but as a misunderstood young woman who formed an unexpected friendship with Glinda while learning sorcery at Shiz University.

However, the two future witches’ friendship is broken apart by the corrupt government of the Wizard of Oz (Goldblum) and the machinations of the university’s headmistress (Yeoh). Featuring new songs not seen in the Broadway version, “Wicked” will be broken into two parts that will be released on Thanksgiving weekend this year and in 2025.

“Wicked: Part 1” hits theaters Nov. 27.

Something Wicked this way comes.

The first teaser trailer for the movie musical Wicked: Part One debuted during Super Bowl Sunday, showing the first footage of Cynthia Erivo as the witchy Elphaba and Ariana Grande as bubbly Glinda.

Directed by Jon M. Chu, who also brought In the Heights from stage to screen in 2021, Wicked will be a two-part adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Tony-winning Broadway show. Part Two is set to be released Nov. 26, 2025.

'Wicked' Film Gives First Look at Ariana Grande's Glinda and Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba
A prequel to the events of The Wizard of Oz, Wicked is the origin story of “a green-skinned woman,” the film’s logline states, who “becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.” Its source material is Gregory Maguire’s hit 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Joining Erivo, 37, as that green-skinned heroine and Grande, 30, as her schoolmate-turned-best-friend is Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle, Ethan Slater as Boq, and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible.

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"This movie has everything: giant musical numbers, big action pieces,” Chu told the audience at CinemaCon 2023 in April, introducing first-look footage. “And using a classic story you all know, The Wizard of Oz."

The director added, "At the end of the day, it's actually not about those things. It's about change and [how] it's necessary for things to get better."

The musical’s original Broadway cast included Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda and Idina Menzel as Elphaba. The latter actress earned one of the production’s three Tony Awards, for leading actress in a musical.
Celebrating Wicked's 15th anniversary in 2018, Menzel told PEOPLE she “had no idea what it would become but I knew it was something special. I needed this role to teach me something about life that I needed to learn."

Chenoweth said at the time, "Very few times in our career do we have a hand-in-glove moment, and Glinda was mine. I just thought when I read it, ‘This is my part! And if anybody else plays Glinda, I’ll kill them in their sleep!’”

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Jon M. Chu
Jon M. Chu. COURTESY TOSKA HUSTED
In 2022 around the time it was filming, Erivo told Entertainment Tonight that the Wicked film adaptation would be “unlike anything you've ever seen before."
She continued, "I think we're going to enjoy the magic of it. We're going to try and put our own spin on what we know already and show you a story about two women [who] are sisters."

Wicked: Part One is in theaters Nov. 27.
Here’s the first official trailer for Wicked Part 1, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, which dropped during this evening’s Super Bowl.

Directed by Jon M. Chu, the big-screen adaptation tells the untold story of the Witches of Oz, based on the bestselling novel by Gregory Maguire, originally based on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, previously adapted into MGM’s classic 1939 film of the same name. The story is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, which examines how the green-skinned Elphaba (Erivo) became the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as the sorceress Glinda’s (Grande) trajectory to becoming known as the Good Witch. The big-screen adaptation was written by Winne Holzman, who penned the long-running stage production, and Oscar-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz. Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldbum, Jonathan Bailey, and Ethan Slater also star.

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Marc Platt produced the pic through his Universal-based Marc Platt Productions, alongside David Stone, with Senior Executive Vice President of Production Erik Baiers and Vice President of Production Development Lexi Barta overseeing the project on behalf of the studio.

Wicked will be broken into two parts with Wicked Part One slated to drop on Nov. 27, 2024. Chu previously shared on Instagram why they opted to make two films for the musical.

“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,” Chu said in an open letter posted on Instagram. “So we decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one Wicked movie but TWO!!!! With more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys of these beloved characters.”

Check out the trailer above.