Billboard Women in Music 2025
Only a month from when “Wicked” wrapped up its awards season run at the Academy Awards and seven months ahead of its release in theaters, “Wicked: For Good” is ready to bring us back down the yellow brick road. Part two of the hit Broadway musical adaptation follows heroine Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) as the people of Oz are manipulated into reviling her, and best friend Glinda (Ariana Grande) is forced to become a mouthpiece for the opposition led by Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).
The crowd at CinemaCon got its first look at some of the footage from the film on Wednesday during Universal’s presentation, as well as a live performance of a medley of some of the music from the show as performed by a 43-piece orchestra conducted by Rickey Minor. “Wicked: For Good” opens in theaters November 21, 2025.
Both Erivo and Grande took the stage to introduce “For Good” alongside director Jon M. Chu and producer Marc Platt. Chu reminded that this is the third year “Wicked” has closed Universal’s CinemaCon presentation; “thank God it worked out,” he said. Platt also acknowledged the risk the studio took by splitting the play into two parts, but he said the play is seeing some record box office returns as a result of the movie’s popularity. Erivo and Grande talked about sneaking into some sing-a-long screenings and have packed their tissues to go back on tour and do the same.
So what did we see from the film in the room at the Colosseum? “There’s no going back,” Elphaba says to open what is a full trailer for the film. We see Glinda donning her iconic pink dress and tiara, Fiyero leading his “squadron hot on your trail,” Elphaba skywriting “The Wizard Lies,” and even Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion standing in front of the Wizard being instructed to bring him the Wicked Witch of the West’s broom. The trailer is scored to the song “For Good” from the musical, and it closes with an exchange between Grande and Erivo: “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had,” Elphaba says to Glinda. “And I’ve had so many friends,” she replies, “But only one that ever mattered.”
Fans of the musical will know that Act Two of the show takes on a much darker tone than the first half, with Elphaba and Glinda put at odds and the former’s grip on her own magic leading to chaotic mishaps. The connective tissue between “Wicked” and its narrative sequel, “The Wizard of Oz,” also takes greater focus as the origin stories behind characters like the Scarecrow and the Tin Man are revealed, as well as how a house from Kansas ends up falling out of the sky in Munchkinland. Director Jon M. Chu has also noted that Dorothy Gale, whose role is brief in the musical, will be shown more prominently in the film.
Speaking to IndieWire in December 2024, cast member Jonathan Bailey, who plays Elphaba’s love interest Fiyero, shared that people shouldn’t expect “Wicked: For Good” to be as light and fun as the first film. He said at the time, “I’m really excited for the tonal shift. The world gets heavier and more complicated and there’s just that pumping sense of hope and joy and resilience and all the things that we love about Elphaba’s journey that I can’t wait for.”
In addition to Bailey, Erivo, Grande, Yeoh, and Goldblum all returning in their respective roles, Ethan Slater (Boq), Marissa Bode (Nessarose), and Bowen Yang (Pfannee) will all be featured in the film as well. “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” were shot at the same time, with the decision to split the musical into two parts coming ahead of production.
“As we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of ‘Wicked’ into a single film without doing some real damage to it,” Chu wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter in April 2022 announcing the choice. “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. We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one ‘Wicked’ movie but two! 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 for these beloved characters.”
The first half of the two-parter grossed nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars at the global box office, as well as 10 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress (Erivo), and Best Supporting Actress (Grande). It took home two Oscars for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. Chu also managed a win for Best Director at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.
