Reisha Shetty Junior Digital Writer

The Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo-starrer Wicked is finally happening and we have some major deets. The director, Jon M. Chu, who has previously directed Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights, announced on social media that his upcoming film, Wicked, will be split into two films. To stay true to the iconic storyline and songs from one of the biggest Broadway musicals, Jon decided to release the film in two parts, with the first film releasing on December 25, 2024, and the second film exactly a year later on December 25, 2025.

The hit Broadway musical, Wicked is a prequel to the evergreen classic The Wizard of Oz, before Dorothy’s arrival to the magical land. The story follows two unlikely friends, Elphaba and Glinda, who often butt heads due to their opposing views and personalities (the former is the Wicked Witch of the West and the latter is The Good Witch), and how that leads the two witches on two different roads.

Jon shared a statement on Twitter that read, “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. As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years.”

The rumours that Wicked is being adapted to a movie started doing the rounds sometime last year, sending every musical fan ever into a state of uncontrollable excitement. Then, on November 5, 2021, the director broke the news to the stars during a video conference about their casting in the musical adaptation. Grande, Erivo and Chu took to Instagram to share the happy news, with the two leading ladies even sending each other flowers along with the iconic quote from the show, “Pink goes good with green”.

 Ariana Grande will be playing the role of the Good Witch Glinda while Cynthia Erivo will be portraying the character of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. The role of the two witches has previously been played by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth in the original Broadway production.

For those of you who haven’t seen the musical, gear up for the movie, because this sounds like a really cracker!