Wicked, the Broadway musical that serves as a semi-prequel to The Wizard of Oz, continues down the metaphorical yellow brick highway resulting in its official film adaptation. Now it’s taken a large leap towards the Emerald City by casting its two most main roles, as pop icon Ariana Grande and acclaimed English actor Cynthia Erivo as Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively.

Based on the e book by Gregory Maguire, Wicked tells of the friendship that existed between the 2 witches previous to the occasions of The Wizard of Oz. They began as faculty roommates (that is all information to me) earlier than Elphaba discovers the titular Wizard has been imprisoning animals and is a fraud. When Elphaba vows to cease him, the Wizard’s press secretary Madame Morrible pronounces Elphaba is a “wicked” witch. Suffice it to say, the Wicked Witch of the West is much less unequivocally evil than the 1939 film has led you to consider.

The casting information comes through Variety. Grande, in fact, rose to fame as Cat Valentine within the Nickelodeon collection Victorious earlier than turning into the best-selling, Grammy-winning, immensely well-liked pop famous person. Erivo, who’s a mere Oscar away from an EGOT, originated the function of Chenice within the English musical I Can’t Sing! (she will sing) earlier than making her Broadway debut in The Color Purple.

A Wicked film has theoretically been within the works since 2004, with one introduced to premiere in 2019. However, that fell aside with the departure of director Stephen Daldry on account of scheduling conflicts, and the discharge date was given as an alternative to the film adaptation of the musical Cats, and everyone knows how that labored out. Currently, Jon M. Chu—director of Crazy Rich Asians and the current film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical In the Heights—has been tapped to direct Wicked, which begins manufacturing subsequent summer season.

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