The screen adaptation of the Broadway play ‘Wicked’ examines the nature of good and evil and captivates with it’s multilayered appeal.
Wicked, the much-anticipated film adaptation of the longest-running Broadway musical is enchanting audiences everywhere garnering close to $200MM in global box office revenue in its first week. The film also has the distinction of delivering the strongest box office opening ever for a screen adaption of a Broadway musical.
Loosely inspired by Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked was conceived as a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), on which the legendary film The Wizard of Oz (1939) is based. Maguire’s Wicked depicts an elaborate backstory in which Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, was friends with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, while the two women were university students.
Starring pop star Ariana Grande as Glinda, and Broadway actress and singer Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Wicked is a visual and emotional masterpiece with stand-out performances by the two leads along with the marvelous presence of Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. Directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians), Wicked was filmed in two segments with Part Two scheduled for release in November 2025. (READ MORE from Leonora Cravotta: AI Snake Oil: Separating Hype From Reality in Artificial Intelligence)
The film opens with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, proclaiming the death of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, to the citizens of Munchkinland. Following these remarks, a young woman in the crowd asks Glinda to confirm a rumor that she and Elphaba were once friends. While Glinda tries to downplay their relationship by saying that their paths crossed, this exchange serves as the vehicle for the recounting of how she and Elphaba became acquainted as students at Shiz University, a school for would-be sorcerers.
The film provides a detailed portrait of Elphaba’s painful early childhood where she was rejected by her father and ridiculed by other children for her green complexion. Although Elphaba was deeply hurt by the way others treated her for being different, she soon became cognizant that she possessed an ability to move objects with her mind.
