{"id":1041486,"date":"2026-01-17T04:17:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=483419"},"modified":"2026-01-17T04:17:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:17:39","slug":"everything-you-should-know-before-watching-wicked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/everything-you-should-know-before-watching-wicked\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything you should know before watching Wicked"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So you\u2019re going to watch Wicked<\/em>, the big movie musical based on the second highest-grossing Broadway musical of all time<\/a>, based on Gregory Maguire\u2019s 2000 novel Wicked<\/em><\/a>, based on L. Frank Baum\u2019s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz<\/em>. (And only partly influenced by the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, which, unlike Baum\u2019s books, isn\u2019t in the public domain.) That\u2019s a pretty complicated lineage for anything hitting the screen, and you may have some questions. Or maybe you think<\/em> you don\u2019t have questions, because you don\u2019t quite realize what you\u2019re getting into here \u2014\u00a0and you aren\u2019t alone, based on some of the responses people have had after watching the movie. We can help.<\/p>\n

How long is Wicked, and does it have a post-credits scene?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s get that out of the way first: It\u2019s two hours and 40 minutes long. And nope, there\u2019s no post-credits scene, mid-credits scene, dancing animated characters during the credits \u2014 nothing fun like that. Once the big halftime number plays, you\u2019re free to go contemplate the cliffhanger you just experienced.<\/p>\n

\"Glinda<\/p>\n

Wait, what do you mean, \u2018halftime number\u2019?<\/h2>\n

You don\u2019t become the second highest-grossing Broadway musical in history without showstopping song-and-dance routines. Wicked<\/em> is full of song-and-dance numbers penned by legendary Broadway lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz. Arguably, it isn\u2019t much of a movie without the musical numbers, which convey most of the important information and all of the important emotions, and provide all the spectacle.<\/p>\n

But movie studios don\u2019t love to sell movie musicals to the masses. Case in point: When I saw the 2024 Mean Girls<\/em><\/a> movie, some attendees in my theater were vocally surprised and annoyed to learn it was a musical, because the trailers largely disguised the fact that it centered on singing and dancing. The same thing happened with 2023\u2019s The Color Purple<\/em><\/a> and Wonka<\/em><\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s become pretty standard for movie-musical marketing to hide the fact that the movie has music<\/a>. Most of Wicked<\/em>\u2019s trailers followed suit, disguising the fact that it was a musical right up until a month before release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why are so many musical movies being made if marketers don\u2019t think movie musicals are popular or trendy?<\/h2>\n

Keep in mind that the marketers aren\u2019t the same people who are greenlighting or making these movies \u2014 they\u2019re just coming along afterward and figuring out how to sell what someone else made. But that said, my best guess is that studios remain endlessly beholden to known, familiar, and popular IP \u2014 and a show that\u2019s made more than $1.6 billion on Broadway is seen as having a built-in audience. But anyway. All that explains \u201cnumber,\u201d but we haven\u2019t gotten to \u201chalftime\u201d or \u201ccliffhanger\u201d yet.<\/p>\n

Is Wicked a complete movie?<\/h2>\n

Nope! It\u2019s the first half of the Broadway show\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the first of two acts. The title in the initial advertising was Wicked<\/em>. The on-screen title is Wicked \u2014\u00a0Part 1. <\/em>In marketing, though, it\u2019s now being billed as Wicked: Part I<\/em>. <\/em>Maybe this is only confusing to fact-checkers and copy-editors, but let me tell you, we don\u2019t love it. Anyway, the movie ends right at the act break, with the song \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d just when things are really getting serious.<\/p>\n

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When does Wicked: Part II come out?<\/h2>\n

Nov. 21, 2025 \u2014 basically a year from Wicked: Part I<\/em>\u2019s original release. The official title was originally Wicked Part 2: For Good<\/em>, but judging from current marketing materials, it looks like now it\u2019s just Wicked: Part II<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Waiting until people are in the theater to spring the \u201cPart I\u201d title on them \u2014 doesn\u2019t that feel like another deliberate fakeout?<\/h2>\n

Kinda does!<\/p>\n

So Part I is 160 minutes long\u2026 How long is Wicked the Broadway show?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s 165 minutes, including both acts and a 15-minute intermission. Crazy, right?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s padding these movies out so they\u2019re twice as long as the Broadway show?<\/h2>\n

Wicked: Part I<\/em> is longer because a lot more non-musical narrative scenes have been added, drawing from the Gregory Maguire book the Broadway musical adapted. For one thing, \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d itself feels weirdly hyper-extended, due to the action scenes and dialogue that interrupt the song between verses. The movie also spends more time with its eventual wicked witch, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), in childhood, and more time on scenes of her rivalry and friendship with classmate and roommate Galinda (Ariana Grande).<\/p>\n

Wicked: Part II<\/em> will be longer because it will add two new songs written by Schwartz, according to the composer himself<\/a>. Given the second act\u2019s big time-jumps through Elphaba\u2019s career as a witch, which the stage musical skips past, it also wouldn\u2019t be surprising if Part II<\/em> follows Part I<\/em>\u2019s lead and fills in some of the gaps with more character work.<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s possible Part II <\/em>will reprise some of Part I<\/em>\u2019s songs (at least, more than the original Broadway musical already does) to extend its length and\/or let it trade a little more heavily on the iconic moments and songs from Act I of the show. That seems relatively unlikely, since director John M. Chu considers himself a big fan of the Broadway musical \u2014\u00a0but it may be a necessary practicality for two halves of a story being told a year apart.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Is the Wicked book good? Should I read it?<\/h2>\n

Maguire has made an entire career out of retelling fairy tales as complicated literary novels, but he always comes back to the Wicked series, which isn\u2019t just Elphaba\u2019s story: Later novels in the series<\/a> center on Elphaba\u2019s son and granddaughter<\/a>, with one side book, A Lion Among Men<\/em>, spending more time with the Cowardly Lion. They\u2019re well worth reading if you enjoy dense, thoughtful literary fantasy \u2014 the first book in the series, fully titled as Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West<\/em>, is a particularly rich character study that\u2019s a lot more narratively complicated than the stage musical or the movie.<\/p>\n

What about Wicked\u2019s original Broadway stars? Are Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth in Wicked the movie?\u00a0<\/h2>\n

You\u2019re sure you want to know? This is where we cross the line into \u201cSome people want to know going in, and some don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoil me.<\/h2>\n

Yep, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth have a cute musical cameo in the middle of \u201cOne Short Day,\u201d when Elphaba and Galinda (by that point in the story, just \u201cGlinda\u201d) are speed-touring the Emerald City, and stop to watch a stage show called Wizomania<\/em>, which offers some exposition about the Wizard of Oz and the magical book the Grimmerie, which is naturally about to become important. Menzel and Chenoweth come out on stage together in elaborate gowns to sing about the city\u2019s history \u2014 and elbow each other a bit in mock diva rivalry as they try to upstage each other. <\/p>\n

Ariana Grande is a huge star, but where do I know Cynthia Erivo from? <\/h2>\n

Isn\u2019t she spectacular? You can see her starring in the 2019 Harriet Tubman movie Harriet <\/em>\u2014 and mostly not singing, though she did write and perform the soundtrack song \u201cStand Up,\u201d which earned her an Oscar nomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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