Wicked
IMDb Rating
120K+
IMDb Votes
88%
Rotten Tomatoes
$756M
Box Office
Synopsis & Review
Long before Dorothy arrives in Oz, Elphaba — born with green skin and shunned because of it — and Galinda — beautiful, popular, and very pleased with herself — meet as roommates at Shiz University. What begins as open animosity slowly transforms into one of the most complicated friendships in Oz, as the two young women navigate ambition, prejudice, and the seductive pull of power in a society quietly turning fascist beneath its emerald veneer.
Splitting the beloved Broadway musical into two films invites obvious skepticism, and Wicked justifies the format by treating its first act with the patience a stage production never affords it — entire sequences get room to breathe that the musical's brisk pacing only gestures toward. Jon M. Chu, who previously demonstrated his facility with movement and color in In the Heights, stages the production numbers with genuine cinematic ambition; "Defying Gravity" alone justifies a meaningful chunk of the film's reported budget. Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba is the film's emotional center, finding aching vulnerability beneath the character's gathering rage, while Ariana Grande's Galinda is a far sharper comic performance than the marketing suggested, mining real pathos from a character usually played as pure froth. The decision to split the story does leave this first installment feeling slightly inflated in its back half, padding scenes that the musical handles in minutes, but as a showcase for two committed lead performances and Chu's evident reverence for the source material, it largely earns its runtime — and its place as the highest-grossing film adaptation of a Broadway musical in history.
Why Watch This Movie?
Cynthia Erivo's Career-Defining Performance
Erivo brings Tony-caliber vocal power and genuine dramatic depth to Elphaba, turning the character's arc from outcast to misunderstood revolutionary into the film's beating heart.
Ariana Grande Subverts Expectations as Galinda
Far from a vanity casting choice, Grande delivers comic timing and unexpected emotional layers that critics widely cited as one of the film's biggest surprises.
The Highest-Grossing Broadway Adaptation Ever Filmed
Wicked became the most successful movie musical based on a stage production in box-office history, proving theatrical musicals can still command massive mainstream audiences.
"Defying Gravity" Is a Genuine Big-Screen Showstopper
Jon M. Chu's staging of the film's climactic number is built specifically for the scale of cinema, justifying the split into two parts almost on its own.
Cast & Crew
Director
Jon M. Chu
Screenplay
Winnie Holzman & Dana Fox
Studio
Universal Pictures
Elphaba
Cynthia Erivo
Galinda
Ariana Grande
Fiyero
Jonathan Bailey
Madame Morrible
Michelle Yeoh
Original Songs
Stephen Schwartz
Official Trailer
© Universal Pictures. Trailer embedded via YouTube.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was Wicked split into two movies?
The creative team felt that compressing the entire Broadway musical's two acts into a single film would require cutting too much material, so Universal and director Jon M. Chu split the story at the same intermission point used in the stage production, with "Wicked: For Good" arriving in theaters in late 2025.
Do I need to have seen the Broadway musical first?
No. The film tells a complete, self-contained story for newcomers, establishing Elphaba and Galinda's first meeting at Shiz University without assuming prior familiarity with the stage show or Gregory Maguire's original novel.
Did Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande do their own singing?
Yes. Both actors performed their own vocals live on set rather than relying primarily on studio pre-records, a deliberate choice by director Jon M. Chu to capture more raw, emotionally immediate performances during the musical numbers.
How does this Wicked relate to The Wizard of Oz?
The story functions as a prequel, explaining the untold history of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch years before Dorothy's arrival in Oz, reframing several familiar Wizard of Oz characters and events from a very different perspective.
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