WICKED Film will be split into two movies, releasing Dec 2024 & Dec 2025- Page 2

[Nolan LuPone]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:42pm

TotallyEffed said: "Nolan LuPone said: "TotallyEffed said: "Kad said: "Guess they’re not cutting “Something Bad.”"

They’re actually adding several reprises of it."

Please, tell me you're joking"

They’ve expanded the role of Doctor Dillamond, he is now the narrator, set in the future. Hence the need for two movies.The role will be split between Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. Early reports are suggesting the expanded versions of Something Bad are going to be major Oscar bait for Best Song."

Lol, I was genuinely concerned for a second

[Luminaire2]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:43pm

Are they maybe using more of the actual book to flesh out the story? Taking the book, adding the songs? 

If it’s just the Broadway show adapted, it wouldn’t need to two films. 

[Kad]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:48pm

There also isn’t enough music for a 4-5hr, two part epic. 

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:49pm

The backlash on this will be incredible. This is a lousy idea. Aside from Greatest Showman, Hollywood has not made a financially successful movie musical in years, and even Greatest Showman was a sleeper hit. Taking a two and a half hour musical and making it into two movie musicals just sounds like bad business. Making a single film is a huge risk as it is. Nobody needs Wicked the Movie the Hobbit Edition.

Either someone has a lot of faith that this will do really well, or someone is banking on part two going straight to streaming, which will lead to new subscribers looking to catch the second part. Now, I'll probably just wait for reviews, as I'm expecting a Dear Evan Hanson style turkey.

[pippy1]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:50pm

Jordan Catalano said: "Jesus. So “Wicked” will now be longer than “Les Mis”."

 

It is crazy, but it may all be worth it for this comment. Made me spit out my water.

 

[Alex M]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:54pm

stlrod said: "If it were April 1, I could understand this."

I fully thought this was just an old April fools post.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:55pm

Really bad idea... Or as they'd say in Boston, "Wicked bad!"

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:56pm

I really can’t imagine how this will end up being a good idea - artistically or financially. I think they’re wildly overestimating how popular it’ll end up being, regardless of the names attached and the property itself. Not to mention they’re being released over 2 and 3 years from now. And unless they’re going back to the novel to flesh out the plot (which would only convolute it more), there’s just not enough material to support a two-part movie.

I’m baffled. And that press release from Jon Chu reads like they’re either stalling for time or they are crap storytellers. Both ways spell bad news.

[Kavana]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 12:59pm

Imagine buying half of a musical soundtrack 

How would this get nominated, would the talent fyc both years?

how ever they explain it, this makes my head feel funny

Why anyone would trust Chu with their property after what he did to Jem is beyond me

Updated On: 4/26/22 at 12:59 PM

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:05pm

I think this could go either way. The pessimist in me thinks it will kill the flow of the story and lead to two bloated films instead of one effective one. The optimist in me hopes they use this as an opportunity to flesh out storylines, maybe add in some more elements of the book, and fix some problems the stage show has.
 

They’ve said they wanted to add songs from the beginning and, once Ariana was cast, I assumed Glinda would get more to do. So I’m sure there’ll be enough music to fill two films. And maybe now we can actually give Elphaba and Fiyero time to develop a relationship instead of just having them run off together because plot. And the whole Animal activism/Dr. Dillamond stoyline is really glossed over onstage in the interest of time.  

[Keiichi2]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:12pm

Maybe they'll add a lot of stuff that will be a remake of the Garland film, with all the songs and scenes from that movie tossed in.  That way, it will be a double punch of a musical film adaptation we don't need, and a remake we don't need!

[Rakesh Natarajan]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:13pm

Universal really just went "We've lost money on Cats. We've lost money on Dear Evan Hansen. Why should we lose money on 3 musical movies when we could split Wicked into 2 movies and lose money on 4?"

Obviously, I'm kidding and I hope it'll be successful (not because I care about Wicked but because I'd like to see more musical movies in the future)... but what on earth are they thinking? 

[ATerrifyingAndImposingFigure]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:13pm

I already lost interest after the casting of Erivo and Grande, but this has caused me to lose whatever faith I had in the project.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:19pm

My first response was "why?" 
But maybe they have something good in mind. 

The libretto isn't exactly beyond improvement.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:19pm

Yeah, they're really reaching. And as a fan of Wicked, it doesn't have some big, sweeping story like Les Miz or some big cliff hanger ending to Act 1. You essentially know what's going to happen. If Titanic can be one movie, I think we could stretch Wicked into one. And to someone else's point, most of the extra character's songs are awful, so cut those and condense it. 

I'm a HUGE Grande fan, but her casting gives me pause. I hope they keep to the more operatic tone of the show and not have Glinda riffing all over the place. 

[Dolly80]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:20pm

This is a spectacularly bad idea. Fully expecting a reversal of this decision when they see the inevitable backlash.

Why on earth would you want to drag this out even longer?

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:20pm

Kavana said: "Why anyone would trust Chu with their property after what he did to Jem is beyond me"

He... he didn't write it... he made the movie Hasbro wanted him to make. 

But that aside, this is gonna be dog ****. Lol. Winnie Holzman and Schwartz have for ages talked about how they're "Working on the script!" For literally a decade. And now we a project that out of nowhere now needs two 2+ hours to accomplish one of the most simplistic commercially successful musical theatre stories in decades? There is no way this doesn't blow up in their faces. Universal really over here trying to outdo Cats... and they can't do it. Surely gonna be a lot more of a financial blunder tho!

[Blockhead24]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:29pm

ATerrifyingAndImposingFigure said: "I already lost interest after the casting of Erivo and Grande, but this has caused me to lose whatever faith I had in the project."

This 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:33pm

Did they honestly think people would be excited by this announcement?

And like pretty much every other movie musical now, I fully expect new material to be incorporated into the stage version. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:41pm

But like what more can be explained? Girls meet. They don't like each other. They realize they like each other. The end. 

Does that need two movies? Do we really need to explore Glinda's political agenda? Prob not.

But Schwartz dropped the ball with Hunchback so not surprised.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:41pm

I thought it was some late April Fool's Day gag at first.  I can't imagine anybody going back for the second film a year later.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 1:53pm

Wow, they better hope that Part 1 ends up grossing quite literally 1000% what Chu's pandemic-era musical movie did to justify a second movie. The Hollywood suicide mission to turn everything into a franchise no matter how cynically ill-fitting has certainly backfired about 1000% more often than it has worked out. That said, a movie of just Act 1 might not only be more satisfying than a movie of Act 2, but of a movie that includes both. If the pacing isn't deadly. 

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 2:00pm

If this was the first exposure people would have to the property (book), then it could've worked. BUT they're basically splitting a musical in half that has been seen all over the world. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

I really would expect an about-face on this as I haven't seen a positive reaction to it anywhere...except in Chu's head.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 2:03pm

That’s the other thing! You end the first movie with “Defying Gravity,” and then do you really have enough story/material left to justify an entirely separate movie? Or do you end the first movie pre-DG and give your audience blue balls for the next year? It sucks that everything hinges on that moment, but they baked it into the appeal of seeing Wicked and that song is undeniably the highlight and the story’s most major plot/character shift.

[BarnabyTucker]

Posted: 4/26/22 at 2:08pm

I'm cautiously optimistic.  Chu did fabulous work with In the Heights and Crazy Rich Asians, so perhaps he'll pull off an epic that incorporates more elements from the book.

Fiddler on the Roof was a real departure from the musical comedy we got in the Robbins production, and Jewison created a masterpiece that was entirely cinematic and rooted in the medium.  

We'll see!