Jon M. Chu’s ‘Wicked’ Movie With Ariana Grande Will Be Split Into Two Parts Because That’s How Movies Are Made Now, Apparently

There has been a trend in Hollywood of turning a single story into multiple stories: perhaps it began with the final Harry Potter book being split into two very mong movies (one of them being more boring than the other), and slowly evolved into every franchise making two movies where they really only need one. Then they did it with The Hunger Games sequels, and soon enough everyone was asking, “are we really supposed to come back in a few months and do this all again?” Yes! And now we are expected to do that for the upcoming movie adaptation of Wicked!

Director Jon M. Chu announced on Twitter that the movie simply could not be a single film without doing “real damage” to it. The Wicked saga will instead be turned into two movies, releasing in December 2024 and December 2025. By then, hopefully, the hype will still be around.

“As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years,” Chu wrote on Twitter. “With more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys of these beloved characters.” The message was sent from Chu’s OzPhone. Ha!

The movie(s) will star Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the witches with a complicated relationship, which will likely be explored in-depth, now that there will be another movie. To be fair, the movie will be based on the play that’s based on the book that’s a spinoff of another movie, based on another series of books, so there is a large quantity of content there. On the other hand….that’s a lot of singing to endure for over four hours.