[This story contains major spoilers from Wicked.]
Wicked fans won’t have to wait too long to return to the wonderful land of Oz.
The second film in Jon M. Chu’s two-part on-screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical is set to hit theaters Nov. 21, 2025, almost exactly a year after Wicked was released. Wicked: Part Two will see the witches of Oz, Ariana Grande‘s Galinda — aka Glinda the Good Witch — and Cynthia Erivo‘s Elphaba — aka the Wicked Witch of the West — continuing where the story that began with the first film.
Wicked, which arrived in theaters Nov. 22, had the highest opening for a musical adaptation with an estimated $114 million at the domestic box office. (Grande and Erivo, despite an unverified online rumor, were paid equal for their show-stopping starring roles.) The films are based on the 2003 musical of the same name, which was originally based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire.
Wicked tells the untold story of the witches of Oz. Winnie Holzman, the stage production’s book writer, wrote the screenplay for Chu’s movie with Dana Fox. 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).
Wicked ended with Erivo’s awe-inspiring performance of the stage show’s most well-known musical number, “Defying Gravity.” Since “Defying Gravity” served as the end of the Broadway show’s first act, this Wicked ending helped to usher in Chu’s vision to break Act 1 and Act 2 into separate films.
Chu’s Wicked stayed true to the stage musical, featuring little to no changes to the story’s overall plot. Though there is no official confirmation yet on how closely the storyline of the second film will align with the show’s second act, however, Jeff Goldblum, who plays the Wizard, recently said in an interview that the second part would feature “a couple of new songs” written by Schwartz.
Chu spoke to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film’s release to share insight on his vision for the film.
“We knew we didn’t want to pull the movie away from the show so far that it wasn’t the show that I loved,” he said of the moviemaking process. “We started talking about, what numbers can you cut to get it in? And the amount of numbers you have to cut to get this story in is just not plausible. You want all the songs, so you’re going to cut dancing. Which ones? Tell me which ones and we’ll do it. It just became very apparent that we had to make a choice. We went back and forth, are we making a three-and-a-half-hour movie that cuts off all these things? Are we doing one at a time? And if we’re doing one at a time, then we have to make sure that that movie is emotionally fulfilling so it doesn’t feel like we’re stopping in the middle of a story. … We all agreed that we were splitting it.”
He continued, “And we found that that room was necessary. Because if you’re going to, I don’t know, perhaps end on a ‘Defying Gravity,’ let’s say, then you have Elphaba that needs to be the most pivotal moment of her life. So then you need to set up Elphaba more than maybe the show does. You need to see what her childhood was like. … And how do you build that friendship? In the medium of movie, you call bullshit on things so fast, you have to have the time and the space to believe in that relationship. And you have a narrator of Galinda that wraps it all together, that sets up things for movie two. So all those things are just a lot, and I think we found a beautiful balance in it.”
Chu and the team shot both movies together. “We shot both movies over 160 days and got stopped 10 days before finishing [because of the strike] our ‘Defying Gravity’ and flying days,” he told THR.
The team finished up the 10 days of production at the beginning of this year. As the movies were shot together, the cast remains the same for both films.
Wicked‘s second act takes a darker turn from the bright poppy moments in the first act. “Defying Gravity,” in both the stage musical and film, serves as the moment that Elphaba “transforms” into the Wicked Witch of the West that Wizard of Oz fans know, with the added context that the Wizard and her mentor, Madame Morrible, played in the film by Michelle Yeoh, respectively, have branded her “wicked” after she refused to help their plot to strip rights away from the animals in Oz. Elphaba and Glinda, who spent the first act and film becoming friends against all odds, go their separate ways as Elphaba chooses to rebel against the Wizard and Glinda stays behind.
Here’s how the story then continues in the stage musical — spoiler alert for new moviegoers!
Act 2 takes place parallel to the events of the original Wizard of Oz. It begins with Glinda, now officially dubbed Glinda the Good, and Fiyero, portrayed by Jonathan Bailey, now captain of the wizard’s guard, speaking with the public of Oz as officials for the Wizard. Morrible, who tells a completely untrue account of the show’s first act finale, announces that Fiyero and Glinda are engaged to calm a crowd worried about the Wicked Witch. Fiyero still cares for Elphaba and leaves due to the crowd’s horrible comments.
Elphaba visits her sister, Nessarose, played by Marissa Bode in the film, who has become the governor of Munchkinland. Nessa has taken away the Munchkins’ rights to get Boq, portrayed by Ethan Slater in the film, to stay with her. Elphaba enchants their mother’s jeweled shoes allowing Nessa to walk, but Boq still rejects her. A spell gone wrong, which Nessa blames on Elphaba, turns Boq into the Tin Man.
The Wizard once again offers Elphaba a chance to join his cause, but she rejects him and Fiyero helps her escape from the Wizard, leaving Glinda behind. The pair eventually confess their love for one another. Morrible and the Wizard devise a plan to put Nessarose in danger to get Elphaba’s attention. This kicks off Morrible causing the tornado in the Wizard of Oz that brings Dorothy to Oz and kills Nessarose, a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the East.
Glinda and Elphaba reunite and fight over Glinda giving Nessa’s shoes to the girl who has arrived in Oz, Dorothy. Eventually, the pair make up after Glinda warns Elphaba of the plan to kill her with a powerful musical number, “For Good.” Elphaba is seemingly melted by a bucket of water, her ending in the Wizard of Oz. Glinda tells the Wizard Elphaba was his daughter, kicking him out of Oz and having Morrible arrested for her plot to kill Nessarose. Fiyero, who has been turned into the scarecrow after trying to help Elphaba earlier in the show, returns to the site of the melting, releasing Elphaba from a trap door and the pair run away together.
Dorothy and her crew can be seen briefly in Wicked‘s first part of the movie, from behind only, and in the trailer speaking with the Wizard. The Wizard of Oz character is shown from behind or in silhouette, never explicitly featured in the stage musical.
Leading up to Wicked (Part Two) arriving in theaters Nov. 21, 2025, THR will update this post as more develops about the second movie.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
