Wicked was pretty much everywhere by the end of 2024, and the same will likely be true to close out the 2025 movie release schedule with the second half of the musical. I had my doubts going into Part 1, because after being lucky enough to see the stage production years before the movie premiered, I just wasn't sure that there was enough in Wicked for two full films. I'm happy to say that I knew I was wrong once the final notes of Cynthia Erivo's take on "Defying Gravity" faded away in the theater last year, and I spoke with Broadway legend Michael James Scott to get his take ahead of Wicked: For Good.
Michael James Scott is best known for playing the Genie in Disney's Aladdin stage production for many years, both on Broadway in New York and in the touring company for many, many years. He also originated the roles of The Minstrel for Broadway's Something Rotten and Dr. Gotswana (perhaps better remembered as The Maggots Man) in The Book of Mormon, among many other credits.
I was fortunate enough to speak with him after he co-hosted the Her Universe Fashion Show at San Diego Comic-Con with Star Wars voice actress and his real-life hype friend Ashley Eckstein. The fashion show had a Wicked theme, with Scott belting his best Elphaba while Eckstein faced some fears to sing as Glinda. The pair sparkled in green and pink outfits when we spoke the next day, and I had to ask the Broadway vet for his thoughts on the Wicked mania of the past year. He shared:
I've never been in Wicked, so it's just an interesting sort of thing, because it is such a musical theater entity, and to see it transfer from the stage. It's the first time in history that a movie has been taken from the Broadway show, the Broadway musical, to go on to be on the screen. That's really exciting for Broadway, and really, really important for Broadway in terms of its reach and its possibility of what it can do for the world.
Wicked of course isn't the first Broadway show to be adapted into a movie, and there have been Broadway productions filmed for the screen, such as Hamilton (now available streaming with a Disney+ subscription). Wicked does combine elements of both, with numbers like "No One Mourns The Wicked" and "What Is This Feeling?" in particular delivering choreography that wouldn't look out of place on the stage. According to Michael James Scott, the popularity is "really important." He went on:
Wicked mania was Wicked mania. It was real, and it has continued to be real. It still is. There's another [movie], For Good. I mean, it's brilliant and genius that they decided to split it up into two and make it two years of of literal Wicked mania.
While there are still a few months left before Wicked: For Good arrives in theaters, it's likely a safe bet that the pop culture buzz that surrounded the first film will be back in full force, if not increased. The Wicked: For Good trailer does spoil a thing or two that come as surprises in the stage show, but the split into two movies means that there's plenty on the way to shock even anybody who has seen the original version.
When I shared that I had my doubts about Wicked being split into two movies only to end up in tears at the end of "Defying Gravity," Michael James Scott responded:
It needs to be split, yes. There's so much more you can do in a film, the elements that you can do there. There's a lot you can do in the film, and there's a lot you can do on a Broadway stage you can't do in a film, right? So both have its merits and both have its special thing, but the epic nature that you can take time [for] in a film is very different from a Broadway show.
I'd point towards "Dancing Through Life" as a number that accomplishes very different things on film vs. stage. While Elphaba and Glinda forming a friendship by the end is true to both, the nuances of the tear-jerking performances from Cynthia Erivo opposite Ariana Grande during the Ozdust dance sequence couldn't be full appreciated on stage. In contrast, the sequence was played for laughs on stage both times I was able to attend a performance. Scott went on:
When you're watching something, you actually have a little bit less patience in terms of seeing it live. Things have to continue to happen. We've got to move, we've got to keep going. So the moments that you can take a breath are very, very specific. In a film, you can live in silence. There are silent films. That's the origin. But there's silence in films that can go for a really long time, and you can get away with that. So I think something in Part 1 was that there was no way they could not have split that up.
Of course, the film version of Wicked also included some action sequences that can't happen on stage, but there's a certain thrill that comes with a live performance. The Broadway legend explained the perks of both formats, then went on to commend the Wicked team for bringing people who worked on the stage show to the film. Scott said:
Wicked is epic. The music is epic. I happen to know a lot of the music team from the Broadway world, which is amazing that they've continued on within the film as well, which is an incredible thing. But those are some of the hardest songs to sing in the musical theater canon, period. And the friends of mine who have played the iconic roles of Elphaba and Glinda are some of my favorite singers in the world, and it's really, truly, some of the hardest music in the world.
Michael James Scott certainly belted out some of that "hardest music in the world" during the Her Universe Fashion Show with its Wicked twist, alongside Ashley Eckstein holding her own next to her Broadway pal. It's a safe bet that both will be seeing Wicked: For Good later this year. Part 2 of Wicked will be available in theaters starting on November 21, with Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, and more reprising their roles from Part 1.
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