Pop star Ariana Grande has just managed to land her biggest acting role yet. According to Variety, the pop star will star along with Award winner Cynthia Erivo in Universal's upcoming live-action adaptation of the musical Wicked.
Before we get into all the details about the movie, here is a brief summary of what the film will be about. Based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the movie will be a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, telling the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch and what happened before Dorothy appeared in the Wizard of Oz. In the film, the two young witches meet while students at Shiz University, trying to navigate friendship, romance, magical training, and learning to embrace their own identities.
Grande will be starring as Glinda, the Good Witch, and Erivo as the Wicked Witch of the West. The director of this movie was initially going to be Stephen Daldy but it was later decided that John M. Chu would be the best fit for directing this musical adaptation. It's been said that Jonathan Bailey from Bridgerton will be playing the role of Fiyero, and Ethen Slater, best known for his role as Spongebob Squarepants, is set to play Boq and Nessa’s eventual love interest on the big screen.
On May 10th, Director John Chu announced that the movie Wicked will be split into two parts. The director clarified on Twitter, saying "Here's what happened: As we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle WICKED's story into a single film without doing some real damage to it.” The director tells us the reason regarding a sequel, "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. 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 for these beloved characters.”
The film is anticipated to be released on December 25th, 2023, and its sequel is expected to be released on December 25th, 2024, exactly one year later.
Likewise, it has been made known that Steven Schwartz, who wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway production, will collaborate with Winnie Holzman to adapt the screenplay. Schwartz later announced on social media that he will be writing two entirely new songs for it and that the film will not be an exact replica of the Broadway production. It has been reported that Marc Platt, who produced the Broadway musical, will also produce the motion picture.
It looks like the famous pop star Ariana Grande’s wish came true as she once tweeted in 2011 that she “Loved seeing Wicked again… amazing production! Made me realize again how badly I want 2 play Glinda at some point in my life! #DreamRole.”
Hopefully, the new film will be similar to the musical Wicked and won’t change the plot too much, due to it being a live adaptation.