Trailer for upcoming musical movie Wicked released

On Super Bowl Sunday, the trailer for Jon M. Chu’s upcoming movie musical Wicked debuted with the musicals’ anthem ‘Defying Gravity’ playing in the background.

The film consists of an all-star cast which stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. As well as Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tiagelaar, Ethan Slater as Boq, Bowen Yang as Pfannee and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz.

The film will be a part of a two part adaptation of the original musical. Back in 2022 Chu said, “as we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of Wicked into a single film without doing some real damage to it.”

Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel that inspired the Broadway musical Wicked, the story takes place before Dorothy lands in Oz. It follows the story behind Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and Galinda Upland who becomes Glinda the Good Witch.

In the trailer, the audience sees the traditional storyline of the musical unfold, starting with Elphaba telling Glinda “something just takes over me and when it does bad things happen.” We also see Grande’s Glinda resting her head on Erivo’s Elphaba shoulder, a sign of their budding friendship.

However, we also hear Goldblum’s voice sinisterly saying “the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

The songwriter for Wicked, composer Stephen Schwartz commented that ‘Defying Gravity’, the most well known song from the musical, was a big reason as to why the film was going to be made into two parts. “We found it very difficult to get past ‘Defying Gravity’ without a break,” Schwartz said. “That song is written specifically to bring a curtain down, and whatever scene to follow it without a break just seemed hugely anti-climactic.”

The first part of the movie adaptation of Wicked will be in theatres on November 27, 2024. Part two is expected to be released on November 26, 2025.