Wicked: The Musical Film Announces Their Lead Actresses
Years ago, when Wicked the musical came out and was an instant sensation, the musical world promised fans a movie rendition of the epic show. However, it wasn’t until recently that that promise came to fruition. When Universal Studios officially greenlit the movie a couple of years ago, many fans were still skeptical because it had taken so long to get it going. However, with the recent announcement of casting, particularly the leading roles, that disbelief that the movie version is coming out is gone from people’s heads. The Wicked movie is coming, and fans couldn’t be more excited about it.
An announcement was made at the beginning of November on who would be playing the favorite roles in the Broadway musical turned movie. Director Jon M. Chu (In The Heights) announced that Broadway breakout Cynthia Erivo (Genius: Aretha, Harriet) would be playing everyone’s favorite green misunderstood villain: Elphaba with pop singer Ariana Grande playing Glinda.
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Jon M. Chu made the announcement on Twitter with the caption: “Get ready for a matchup like you've never seen!! In pink and green!!!”
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo shared photos on their respective Instagram accounts announcing and reacting to the news. They also sent each other flowers in congratulations.
Cynthia Erivo is, of course, no stranger to Broadway. She won a Tony for her role of Celie in The Color Purple. Her performance is sure to be as riveting and heart-wrenching as many of her other roles.
While Ariana Grande had never performed on Broadway, she made her obsession with Wicked known on the internet. and in 2018 when she performed “The Wizard and I” during Wicked’s televised anniversary celebration. Eight years ago, in an interview with KiddNation host Kidd Kraddick, Ariana Grande was asked which of the two main characters in Wicked she would want to play. Ariana had made it clear that she was in love with the musical. She didn’t hesitate at all when she said, “Glinda for sure” before he even had a chance to get the whole question out. Ariana did say that in terms of the singing parts, Elphaba’s part would be “more fun” (“Defying Gravity” anyone?). But Ariana did tell Kraddick that she felt like Glinda fit her and her personality better. And clearly, so did the creatives behind the Wicked movie.
Ariana Grande continued to show her obsession with the Wicked musical, easily besting Kidd Kraddick in a “finish the lyrics” quiz for the songs in the musical. In 2013, she also released Popular with recording artist MIKA, which, of course, has parts of the famous Wicked song of the same name interspersed within.
The movie version of Wicked started gaining momentum way back in 2020 when the original music composer, Stephen Schwartz, told Entertainment Weekly that “progress was being made.” Unfortunately, right after that, the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, it delayed pre-production by quite a bit. Now that things have opened back up again, for the most part, the Wicked movie musical is back on with pre-production in full swing and set for production next summer in the U.K. Stephen Schwartz and writer Winnie Holzmann are working on the screenplay adaption of the Tony award-winning musical. Marc Platt is producing.
With the announcement of the main characters in the movie version of Wicked, the dream is finally becoming a reality. The news spread through the internet, and fans are now eagerly awaiting other casting announcements for some of the other favorite characters. Hopefully, Jon M. Chu or the others won’t keep us in suspense for too long. Summer 2022 for filming the musical still means that it is a long way away, but hopefully, not too long as fans have waited quite a while for this movie musical spectacular.
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