Filmmaker Jon M. Chu bewitched thousands of theater owners in Las Vegas Tuesday when sharing footage of Universal‘s highly anticipated Wicked: For Good, the second title in his two-part on-screen adaptation of the iconic Broadway musical.
And of course, the presentation wouldn’t have been complete without assistance from stars Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda the Good Witch, and Cynthia Erivo‘s Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West. They took the stage with Chu and producer Marc Platt inside the cavernous Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace, where exhibitors are spending this week watching Hollywood studios present their upcoming slates.
“We took a shot, and we divided Wicked into two parts,” Platt said. “Now we have the privilege of doing it all again with Wicked: For Good in November.”
Erivo noted of last year’s hit film, “I may have snuck into a sing-along or two.” She added, “We can’t wait to get back on the road again.” Erivo joked to the crowd about the emotional first film, “You cried — don’t lie.”
According to Platt, “The second film asks of them to go deeper to find more depth and more complexity and more profundity in those characters. What’s in store is going to astonish people.”
Chu noted a very anticipated element of the second film by teasing that the film will include “where the girl from Kansas drops in.”
To say the Wicked footage bewitched the packed house is an understatement and received a rousing response. It’s no wonder why.
The footage included the first look at Dorothy, albeit without showing her face, and there was also golden bricks, a wedding and flying monkeys galore.
In the second film, the two witches deal with the consequences of the choices they made. The footage suggests their deep and abiding friendship is far from over, and shows Glinda warning her.
“This is between the Wizard and I,” Erivo says in one scene. Later, Grande warns, “Elphaba, they’re coming for you.”
Wicked: For Good, whose official title was revealed several months ago, will hit theaters Nov. 21, 2025, almost a year to the day that Wicked flew into cinemas around the world on it way to earning nearly $750 million at the global box office to become the top-grossing Broadway adaptation of all time.
Earlier this week, Wicked fans celebrated on social when the first poster for the second film was spotted at at CinemaCon. It shows Elphaba and Glinda (formerly known as Galinda) standing atop respective cliffs. The yellow brick road and the wizard’s palace in Oz, where the first movie’s grand “Defying Gravity” finale is set, separates them in the middle in the gorge below.
The films are based on the 2003 musical of the same name, which was originally based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire about the untold story of the witches of Oz.
Chu directed from screeplays by Dana Fox and Winnie Holzman, the stage production’s book writer. Academy Award-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz adapted the musical for the screen. Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth originated the roles of Elphaba and Glinda on Broadway (and they appeared in surprise cameos during the “One Short Day” sequence).
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