Elphaba was born with green skin and was misunderstood and mistreated during her childhood. Her newfound friendship with Glinda, who is known for her craving to be popular at university, alters the way she is seen. When they travel to meet The Wonderful Wizard of Oz their relationship stops at a critical juncture, which causes them to go on different paths.
Since the creation of The Wizard of Oz in 1939, many adaptations of the film have been made, the most famous being Wicked the musical in the West End (2006) and more recently Wicked the movie (2024). During the first weekend after its release the movie has accumulated £86,946,088, which is surprisingly less than Wicked the Musical’s first weekend which was £128,736,720.
This film was in production for 14 months (from December 2022 – January 2024), however the short time frame does not shield it from controversy. For example, the poster controversy in which the lead actor, Cynthia Erivo who plays Elphaba became incensed after seeing a fan’s rendition of the official movie poster. The fan intended to imitate the original Broadway poster whilst still maintaining the key elements of the new movie’s poster. In doing so the fan covered Erivo’s eyes, which offended her; Erivo later commented on this saying “I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”.
Overall, I believe that the movie was very well executed: I could tell the actors were very dedicated and played their roles well, the music was lively and engaging and the visual effects were impressive. However, I am disappointed that I have to wait until November 2025 to see part 2.