Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s ‘Wicked’ Just Got a New Release Date
The film adaptation of popular Broadway musical Wicked will be split into two separate movies, but audiences won’t have to wait as long to settle into the theater for its first segment. The film starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will be released on Nov. 27, 2024, an update from its previously slated Christmas Day opening. The second installment, also directed by Jon M. Chu, is still scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25, 2025.
Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldbum, Jonathan Bailey, and Ethan Slater also star in the film opposite Grande’s Glinda and Erivo’s Elphaba. While the 2024 and 2025 release dates may still seem far off, even with one less month to wait, it helps to remember that the first announcement of a Wicked adaptation was shared nearly seven years ago, way before any of the cast was attached to the project.
It’s been an even longer time coming for Grande, who expressed an interest in playing Glinda as far back as a 2013. In an interview with KiddNation, back when she was still best known for her work on Nickelodeon, the actress-turned-global superstar belted out songs from the musical without missing a beat. This is the kind of manifestation she was singing about on the Positions deep cut “Just Like Magic.”
While making Wicked, Grande has of course been relatively quiet on the pop front. This prompted her to remind fans that she hasn’t abandoned her post as a singer — most evident in the fact that she’s literally filming a musical. “Wanted to sing you a little something but don’t want to sing anything that is not “Ozian” at the moment 🙂 keeping to my little bubble for now,” she wrote on TikTok, sharing a video singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while reminding fans that she’s “on set filming two musical movies all day every day.”