Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo finally defy gravity in first Wicked: Part One trailer
Thank goodness! The long-awaited first installment of Jon M. Chu's musical adaptation flies into theaters November 27
Film News Wicked
No good deed goes unpunished and Jon M. Chu’s Wicked may as well have been green from the beginning. Even though fans have hotly anticipated this movie for over a decade now (seriously… we can’t stress enough just how long theater kids have been waiting for this), the production has been racked with scandal since day one. Somewhere, Shiz-era Galinda is reading an Ozian gossip rag and giggling and kicking her feet.
First, there was a whole lot of skepticism over whether Ariana Grande actually had the chops to take on a role as challenging as G(a)linda. Then there was the extremely unpopular announcement that the movie would be split into two parts instead of, say, cutting unnecessary fluff like a pretty boring wizard song, “A Sentimental Man.” (Sorry, “A Sentimental Man” fans.) Along the way, there was both a massive anti-James Corden movement and a minor lip-synching scandal. In July, the actors strike shut down production with only a few days to go, but even then, only a crystal ball could have predicted the tornado that would strike less than a week later: Ariana Grande was dating her co-star Ethan Slater. That’s not even to mention the revelation from just last week that Chu edited part of the movie using an Apple Vision Pro headset. We don’t have time to unpack all of that right now, but… whew.
All of this to say: it’s been an unbelievably long road, but we finally have concrete proof that Wicked: Part One is a real movie that we’ll actually be able to watch one day. We will hear Erivo hit the “Defying Gravity” riff in a trailer that is very visually reverent to the original 1939 movie! Good news!
Grab your bubbles and brooms, everyone. Wicked: Part One finally hits theaters November 27.
73 Comments
I don’t know about you but I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.
Well I watch it for the corporate propaganda
Really tired of female protagonists being told that they need to control their emotions. It’s not even about feminism at this point, it’s just a tired, hacky trope.
You need to calm down. (Apologies if you’re not a chick.)
I’m not.
Why don’t you cry about it?
I don’t know much about Wicked, but from what my wife tells me, one of the big points of the movie is the female characters responding to the “control your emotions” cliche with basically a “fuck you.”
Well to be fair you tell a woman to calm down, or control your emotions, it is going to have the complete opposite affect 100% of the time LOL
Yeah it’s quite literally the whole point of the big act one finale “Defying Gravity,” parts of which are included in this trailer.
Oh sure, I guess “greenface” is still acceptable, then?
That’s just your monitor. Adjust your settings. You’ll know you have it right when you can see Ariana’s natural periwinkle skin tone.
MORE CYAN
I wish they had made this before arianna grande changed her face
Maybe if you gouge out your eyes it’ll look better.
First, there was a whole lot of skepticism over whether Ariana Grande actually had the chops to take on a role as challenging as G(a)linda.
What? Clicking on your link there was one AV Club commenter that was skeptical. One. Everyone else seemed and seems fine with Grande, and fair enough.
I think she will be able to handle the singing but I have doubts about the acting.
Why? She started on Broadway and TV.
As far as I know, that was all child acting (on Nickelodeon?) which creates doubt for me.
Metallica for Super Bowl 2025. Enough of this shit.
Are you suggesting they do a cover of Defying Gravity there? That would be some real synergy.
Some people should never go blonde. Ask me how I know:/
I agree. I think she looks so anemic and weird.
Definitely looks like she needs to mix in an occasional meal between rails of coke at this point.
Completely washed out. I have Southern European ancestry too and that can create some strange effects over-all. Her hair looks really damaged too. Maybe she thought it would make her look more ‘innocent’?
Looks like the Great and Powerful Oz movie only with singing. Bunch of green screen CGI with no soul to it.
Sadly, I know exactly what you mean, and I’m sensing that, too. I really would have scaled this down, and been more practical with effects and sets as much as possible. Not only in keeping with the play, but in the spirit of the original movie. This is a CGI fest.
Ten years too late, with leads ten years too old for the roles.
Also, a TWO-PARTER? Oof, no.
That was my first thought too, “Part one?”They’re sure banking on part 1 being a hit.
I detest that they split this into two movies. Totally unnecessary artistically and a waste of money.
How have the last several musicals released in recent years fared?West Side Story, In The Heights, The Little Mermaid, Wonka?
west side story was a thoroughly unneeded remake while the rest just don’t have very good songs. My favorite musicals: West Side Story, Chicago, South Park, Sound of Music, Rocky Horror, All That Jazz …, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend had good songwriting. Maybe get rid of the rapping seagulls? Maybe Lin-Manuel Miranda needs to be replaced?
Glad someone brought up the ages. Wasn’t Judy Garland like 15 or 16 years old (IRL) in the 1939 original Wizard of Oz? Shame that Hollywood and Broadway haven’t found that same kind of talent these days.
Another Hollywood trailer of a musical where they do everything they can to not show the singing.
It’s baffling
Which is ridiculous when this is one of the most famous Broadway plays ever.
Which is ridiculous ‘cause witches, they were persecutedWicca good and love the earth and women powerAnd I’ll be over here
Ariana Grande with those bleached eyebrows looks less human than person covered in green paint.
I concur 1000%. I came here to try to figure out who that weird monster-person was trying to be Glinda in the Super Bowl commercial.
Speaking of bleach, is she bleaching her skin or is she just not dunking herself in bronzer anymore? Now I’m not really a fan of hers so I don’t follow her religiously but she looks nothing like the image I have in my head of her from just a couple years ago when she was everywhere on the pop music scene.
I know she is Italian but I am Latina but I get pretty light during the winter and then pretty dark in the summer, like a ten shade difference. It is possible that both are her natural color and she probably did used bronzer so she had year round consistency before.
I’m guessing there was more than one make-up artist working on Wicked.
She isn’t using the ungodly amounts of spray tan she was previously.
I honestly have no idea. But her skin color/tone has changed drastically over the years.
Is that green paint? Because I get She-Hulk CG vibes from her face.
Yeah, when the trailer came on I just kept thinking, that girl’s face looks weird.
I’m having more trouble with her acting ability. Inhabiting a character is hard to begin with. Inhabiting a character that regularly breaks into song is doubly so. I know that it’s just a trailer, but I saw nothing in there to suggest she has the chops.
Doesn’t Elphaba usually have a prosthetic nose?
Trying to hide the fact that they were musicals, although it backfired on them, at least made sense in some ways to “Wonka” and the new “The Color Purple”. But “Wicked” is literally one of the most famous and beloved musicals in Broadway history, and every single person who could be interested in seeing a movie version would be doing it expecting a musical… A trailer which doesn’t feature at least part of the chorus from “Defying Gravity” is a new record in stupudity in marketing!
It does make you wonder in this case if they are afraid of comparisons to Chenoweth and Menzel this early in the marketing. Elphaba’s is pretty taxing particularly.
I can’t imagine Cynthia Erivo having any problems there, especially since she doesn’t have to do it eight shows a week.
Wonka did surprisingly well, but The Color Purple was never going to be a major box office hit regardless of whether they advertised it openly as a musical or not. Even among black audiences (who tend to not engage in a massive way with musicals), it wasn’t a remake (musical or not) that was really in demand, and considering how insane the budget was ($100m by all reports), thinking that an emotionally draining movie is going to make bank when released on Christmas Day strikes me as a major misfire (especially considering how well it would’ve done if it released during, I don’t know, Black History Month).
The shows sold out in my town which, believe me, was entirely unexpected. But then I live with Cornbillies who don’t have much to do during Christmas (shop, eat, drink). They’ll watch anything in a theatre and the love musicals around here (I don’t).
it did well at first but then cratered almost immediately.
I’m guessing you don’t live in a place starved for entertainment. Decent entertainment. We really haven’t recovered from the pandemic in so many ways but no one wants to talk about it.
“thinking that an emotionally draining movie is going to make bank when released on Christmas Day”Worked for Les Mis.
Les Mis has a much larger target audience than The Color Purple. Not only that, the people who are going to see Les Mis already know it’s a musical, and they’re probably going because they like both Les Mis and musicals in general. Not to mention that the 2012 adaptation had a budget $40m less than The Color Purple.
So what you had was a movie with a much larger target audience and greater star power with a smaller budget that arguably overperformed, compared to a movie with a larger budget that perhaps underperformed. Les Mis and The Greatest Showman had comparable worldwide box office takes (around $430m on $60-$85m budgets) whereas The Color Purple has thus far done similar numbers to Cats (around $70m worldwide on a $100 budget). All 4 movies released around the same time (but only The Color Purple released on Christmas Day proper), so the factors that you’re looking at which separate movies that are all musicals are target audience, tone, and sociocultural affinity for the specific medium.
I used Dreamgirls for a reason. It starred 4 of the biggest black artists of all time (Beyonce, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, and Jamie Foxx), and is an adaptation of a legendary Broadway show, yet it only did $155m on a budget comparable to Les Mis and The Greatest Showman, who both did nearly triple at the worldwide box office. That signals to me at least one of two things (although I believe both are true): a black audience isn’t enough to make a financially successful musical on the level of those I mentioned (especially at those budget levels), and white audiences tend to not gravitate towards musicals that are dominated by black performers.
They lay a couple of lyrics on top of images, but it is just a teaser. Second trailers are usually the ones that go harder. We saw something similar with The Little Mermaid Remake. Say what you will about the final product, but I like the approach of giving us a tiny morsel of its most iconic song, to whet our appetites. Wicked’s going for the same first impression, but for some reason, I like the way Disney did it better.
Wonka is a musical? Like, more so than the original movie? My kids want to see it, but I think they’re unlikely to enjoy a non-cartoon singing movie.
Is this still a two-parter? It’s not advertised as Part One and has scenes from the entire play in it, not just the first half.
Yeah it still is.
Ariana Grande is the pop industry’s dream, a woman in her 30s that continues to look and dress like a tween. It’s not strange at all, of course.
The casting director:
Intrigued by this. only know the basics about this, but have heard the quality drops after the interval.kinda wish John Waters had written this.where’s the songs?
A lot of people are complaining about how “flat” the effects look, and it’s important to remember they probably aren’t finished. Just look at the lightsaber effects in the original Star Wars teaser compared to the finished product.
this is maybe the stupidest fucking thing i’ve ever read. compare a trailer from 50 years ago to the finished product? 50 fucking years?!
I’m not sure if he meant A New Hope or not, but it can be true that teaser trailers do not include the final CGI.
The whole thing is barely 60 seconds long, and its supposed to sell us on watching the thing. Not bothering to finish effects on a couple dozen shots so they could put out respectable looking images for the fucking Super Bowl is either cheap, lazy, or both.
these part 1/part 2 movies can go fuck themselves. if you can’t make a complete film in 1 part, put it on TV.
Hh no, that riff is not it. To be fair, it’s hard when everyone is going to compare any performance to Idina Menzel.
Oh shut up the riff is fine.
didn’t realize people were mad he edited the movie on an apple vision pro. that seems like one of the few use-cases that makes sense. it’s basically exactly the same editing app as if he was using a desktop computer, right?
Yeah, the only difference being you look like an idiot while you’re using it. Win-win, seems like.
I won’t believe this is actually going to be two films until the credits roll on part one when I see it in theaters. It is just bafflingly stupid to split up. The second act has one good song and if the finale of the first film is “Defying Gravity” – the biggest draw for the whole show – then what is compelling people to go back to theaters to see the second film?I noticed that in the trailer and all the promotional materials it seems they have not been including references to this being part one, so perhaps now that filming has wrapped producers have come to their senses.