Page to Screen discussion
This topic is about
Wicked
Book to TV Movie
>
Wicked
date
newest »
newest »
The film ends with the title card "To Be Continued", setting the stage for Wicked: Part Two (2025). But nothing so far in IMDb - however somewhere at sometime I heard something about Part II. Maybe they are talking a release date? Not sure.
This has finally gone to Peacock. It can be bought or rented on Prime, but free with a Peacock subscription. Not yet watched in this house.
I assume that if this is as popular as it is billed to be that all of Gregory Maguire's books will be eventually be made into movies. This movies designates "part 1".
This was released in theaters on November 9, 2024. It is 2 hrs 40 min
Storyline ~~
A vivid reimagining of the classic The Wizard of Oz, Wicked spotlights the untold stories of Oz's most famous (or infamous) characters, namely the Wicked Witch of the West and her unlikely friend, Glinda the Good Witch. The show follows green-skinned star Elphaba from birth to college and through the life-changing events which eventually label her "wicked," introducing spoiled rich girl Glinda, local prince and heartthrob Fiyero and even the Wizard of Oz himself, a troubled man very unlike the one you may remember. As Elphaba, a passionate political activist if there ever was one, fights injustice and seeks to undo the mistakes of the past, dark secrets, and personal tragedies shape the history of Oz, paying homage to the classic Wizard of Oz story while simultaneously changing fans' understanding of it forever. A cautionary tale about love, friendship, and trust, Wicked effortlessly reveals that there are indeed two sides to every story. —Broadway.com
Imdb
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262426/...
Parents Guide - Rated PG for some scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262426/...
"A monkey is shown to slowly grow a pair of wings as the main character unawaredly casts a spell from a book. The monkey is seen screaming painfully and in agony."
Factual errors
In the movie the two letter abbreviation for Nebraska, NE is used. Two letter state abbreviations weren't introduced until 1963, long after the Wizard left for Oz. The correct abbreviation for the time would likely have been Nebr.
When Elphaba leaps from the Emerald tower, the black cape which Galinda/Glinda had placed on her has suddenly become 3x the original dimensions, and cartoonishly, extremely large.
Revealing mistakes
In the classroom scene where Elphaba causes the flowers to rise in the air and the pollen sends the students to sleep, you can clearly see a wire suspending one of the flowers as it moves. It will be interesting if this gets corrected for the streaming and DVD release of the film.
In the credits
The Universal Pictures logo used is the 1937-47 version, in tribute to the era when The Wizard of Oz (1939) was released, appearing in a zoom-out shot used by the current logo. The logo is also in green and pink, the colors of the main characters Elphaba and Glinda.
The film ends with the title card "To Be Continued", setting the stage for Wicked: Part Two (2025).
Trivia
Practical sets were built and supplemented with CGI rather than being filmed on green or blue screens. Director Jon M. Chu wanted the world of Oz to feel like a real place rather than just a computer-generated background. This included planting 9 million tulips to serve as part of the landscape for Munchkinland.
The name of the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, was created by taking the phonetic pronunciation of the original "Wizard of Oz" author L. Frank Baum's initials, L-F-B, which became Elphaba.
Pfannee is traditionally played onstage by a woman. The character was changed to male so that Bowen Yang could portray the role.
The leading duo insisted on singing live during filming. According to director Jon M. Chu, "When we were shooting it, those girls were like, 'F--- the pre-records. We're going live.'" He was initially skeptical of this, since there would be "a lot of wind" in their air pipes as they performed the more complex sequences while maintaining their singing voices. They simply replied, "Yeah. That's what we do."
Note from Assistant to Stephen Schwartz: While it looks likely that a movie will one day be made based on the musical WICKED, it most likely will not happen for several years at the very soonest.