Universal Moves Forward With Long-Delayed 'Wicked' Film Starring Cynthia Erivo And Ariana Grande

After 17 years in development, Comcast’s CMCSA Universal Pictures is finally moving forward with a film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked” starring Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda.

The Road To The Road To Oz: “Wicked” opened on Broadway in 2003 with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. The production was based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” which offered a back story on the rival witches from L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

The original Broadway production premiered on Oct. 30, 2003, at New York City’s Gershwin Theatre with Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda. The show closed on March 12, 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns and resumed performances on Sept. 14, 2021.

Big Screen Delays: Universal first publicly discussed a film version of “Wicked” in 2004, although the project did not begin to take shape until 2012 with Stephen Daldry as its director. But progress on the production was continuously delayed and Universal put the project on hold to pursue another big screen musical with its 2019 adaptation of “Cats,” which turned out to be a major critical and commercial failure.

The “Wicked” film was back on track in February 2019 with Universal announcing plans for a December 2021 release. But the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the production again, with Daldry dropping out as director.

For the newly-announced production, John M. Chu was signed as the director. Production is scheduled to begin next summer, with a 2023 release.

Risky Casting?: As the lead performers in the film, Universal went with two prominent entertainers who secured stardom in other media but have yet to establish themselves as box office reliables.

The London-born Erivo won a Tony Award in 2016 for the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple” and was Emmy Award-nominated for the HBO thriller “The Outsider.” She is best known to U.S. moviegoers for playing Harriet Tubman in the 2019 art house film “Harriet,” for which she received Academy Award nominations as Best Actress and for co-writing the Best Song nominee “Stand Up.”

Grande came to public prominence in 2009 on the Nickelodeon show “Victorious” and established a successful recording career. She will make her big-screen acting debut in “Don’t Look Up,” which is scheduled for a theatrical and streaming release in December via Netflix NFLX.

Photo: Ariana Grande, courtesy of Emma / Flickr Creative Commons