Someone Please Save the Movie Musical: On ‘Wicked’

Some critics are calling Jon M. Chu’s Wicked adaptation “the best movie-to-musical adaptation since Chicago and Mamma Mia.” This may be an indictment of the movie musicals of the last 15 years rather than an endorsement of the film. Chu’s Wicked (2024) is a big swing and a miss, capturing the content of the stage musical but failing to hit on all of the beats that make it so great. Wicked had to follow in the huge footsteps of its Broadway predecessor, which starred two of Broadway’s most iconic actresses, paid back its production budget in a year and became one of the longest-running Broadway shows in history. Not only that, but the film also acts as the prequel to one of the most important movies of all time, The Wizard of Oz. It is often falsely said that The Wizard of Oz was the first color movie, and while this is not true, it utilized the vibrant Technicolor film process in an era where black and white was still dominant.

‘Wicked’: You Will Be Popular — Or Not

I am a major Broadway buff, the sort who can and will tell you with great enthusiasm about shows from creatives spanning the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lin-Manuel Miranda, to the lyricist whose musical we shall discuss today: Steven Schwartz. Of all the many Broadway shows I adore, the one I have perhaps loved the dearest and longest is Wicked. And yet — or perhaps because of — my little obsession, I have a few qualms about the Wicked movie, whose first half is set to release this November.