Did You Know Ariana Grande Starrer Wicked Has Been 25 Years In The Making?

With the dust settled from a big 2023, winning best picture and topping the box office, Universal Pictures is looking to the future. The studio’s upcoming releases include the big-screen adaptation of Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. The cast of the movie recently attended the CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday, April 11. At the event, the producer Marc Platt revealed he has been on the Wicked journey for 25 years since he first read the novel.

Why did Wicked take so long to make?

The first part of Wicked arrives in theatres on November 25, with part two coming in 2025, also over Thanksgiving. Directed by Jon M. Chu, the film stars Erivo as the green-skinned Elphaba and Grande as the popular Glinda. Michelle Yeoh plays the headmistress at their school and Peter Dinklage will be seen as Dr Dillamond, a history professor and goat.

At the CinemaCon, the makers talked about the upcoming project where Platt revealed it took him more than 2-decades to make his dream of Wicked movie a reality. “I always intended Wicked to be a movie,” he said.

It was Stephen Schwartz who convinced him that it needed music and to go to Broadway first. The theatrical production made a big impression on the movie’s future director, too, who brought both a reverence for the stage show and a vision for big screen grandeur. “We dreamed very, very, very big for Wicked,” said Chu. 

Ariana Grande talks about Wicked

“This whole experience is absolutely impossible to put into words,” said Grande, who with Erivo introduced some new footage from the Thanksgiving release.

Jeff Goldblum was also on hand to talk about Wicked in which he plays the man behind the curtain. “I’ve been chased by dinosaurs, I flew into the belly of a humongous spaceship … I tuned into a fly, but I have never been part of the particular flavor or magic that is this movie. … The whole experience has been dreamy,” said the actor. 

(with inputs from AP)