Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba in the new Wicked film (Image: Universal Studios)
It’s the musical that has defied gravity. Wicked, a reimagining of the wonderful world of Oz, has earned more than £4.6billion and been seen by 65 million people in theatres in more than 100 cities across 16 countries and in seven languages.
Breaking box office records on Broadway and the West End stage, the show has sold more than £80million in merchandise.
And after 21 smash-hit years the musical, based on the bestselling 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, is finally set to fly onto the big screen this month.
“Hollywood started making offers on the book within ten days of publication,” says Maguire.
Almost three decades later, the £112million production looks like it has put every penny on the screen, bringing Oz spectacularly to life, with witches on broomsticks, and yes, flying monkeys.
“It’s an American fairytale,” says the film’s production designer Nathan Crowley. “Everyone wants to go to the Emerald City.”The musical’s drama proved so expansive, however, it had to be divided into two films. Part One opens in Britain on November 22, with Part Two following next year.
Both films were shot back-to-back over two years, bracketing the Hollywood writers’ strike that paused production.
US songstress Ariana Granda plays good witch Glinda in Wicked (Image: Universal Studios)
Wicked imagines the time before Dorothy visited the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, exploring the friendship between two nascent witches set against the backdrop of a magical but politically troubled land with talking animals treated as second class citizens.
Pop superstar Ariana Grande plays the sweet but self-absorbed Glinda the Good Witch, opposite British stage sensation Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the misunderstood green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West: two unlikely friends divided by Oz’s social strife.
“This is a movie that is, at heart, about a friendship that changes two lives in profound ways,” says screenwriter Winnie Holzman.
Wicked will attempt a feat every bit as tough as defying gravity. Transforming a hit stage musical into a blockbuster movie is notoriously perilous.
It has been 21 years since Chicago took home the best picture Oscar, and despite the subsequent successes of Dreamgirls, Les Miserables and The Greatest Showman, we have also seen stage-to-screen flops with Nine, Rock of Ages, The Heights, Dear Evan Hansen and 2019’s execrable Cats.
Even Judy Garland’s beloved Wizard of Oz, now considered a movie classic, was a box office flop when first released in 1939.
Audiences have yet to render their verdict, but Wicked’s early reviews are all raves.
Vanity Fair praised “a film adaptation that’s so confident in its zaniness, so assured in its world-building, and so defiantly big-budget that it sweeps you away like a house in a tornado”.
Yet the film has been almost 30 years in development, and for the last decade Grande, with two Grammys and nine No.1 hits, has been begging producers for the chance to play Glinda.
“It was literally ten years of being like, ‘Knock, knock – any developments? Is there an audition coming this year, or next year?’” says Grande, aged 31.
London-born Erivo, 37, with Emmy, Grammy and Tony awards, admits loving the stage musical since her student days at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but was one of the last actors called to audition for the movie.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d be seen,” she says. But once given the chance, she admits: “I was training like I was a boxer.”
She broke down in tears when director Jon Chu revealed she had won the role of Oz’s rebel outsider, in which she recognises herself: “There’s an innate understanding of what it feels like to be someone who’s different… I’ve always felt very different.”
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at a special screening of Wicked in New York last month (Image: Kevin Mazur/Getty )
Says Grande: “We didn’t screen-test together, which was the craziest thing. Jon just knew that it was going to work”.
Their harmonies are transporting. “Our voices are different, but when you put them together, they work well, almost sometimes sounding like one,” says Erivo. Director Chu built Oz on sound stages in Elstree, Hertfordshire, rather than fake it with CGI.
The Yellow Brick Road is bordered with real mud, Munchkinland bustles with tiny pink thatched cottages, a 106-ft futuristic train takes the witches to the rococo steampunk Emerald City, and Erivo soars through the sky – in a harness – while belting out showstopper Defying Gravity.
Production designer Crowley even hired Norfolk farmers to plant a staggering nine million tulip bulbs to film Oz’s floral landscape. “Everyone looked at me like I was mad,” he admits. Then again, several hundred flying monkeys and talking animals had to rely on CGI.
Erivo, clad in Wicked Witch black and shaved bald beneath wigs, spent up to four hours daily in the makeup chair being painted Elphaba’s unique shade of green.
Her verdant hue could have been added with CGI, but she insisted on fully inhabiting the role, explaining: “Her green skin is part of the essence of who she is.”
By contrast, Grande is a confection in candy-floss pinks, gleaming gowns and iridescent platinum crowns, waving her wand while floating in a giant bubble.
Grande and Erivo both insisted on singing live during filming, rather than lip-synching to tracks they recorded earlier, as is common on movie musicals.
“When we were shooting it, those girls were like… ‘We’re going live,’” says Chu.
Even when Grande was spinning from a chandelier, doing the splits and belting out a song. The duo could have sparked a clash of diva egos, but instead forged a friendship as deep as Elphaba and Glinda’s, in a mutual admiration society.
“We found safety within each other and a friend to hold hands with and laugh with,” says Grande.
Cynthia and Ariana have become good friends since appearing on screen together (Image: Universal Studios)
Erivo, whose acting credits include The Colour Purple stage show and the slavery abolitionist film drama Harriet, praises the former child Broadway star-turned-Nickelodeon TV poppet-turned-pop princess and cosmetics magnate, saying of Grande: “I don’t think people realise how brilliant this person’s brain and voice and talent is.”
Grande returns the compliment: “She’s my favourite female voice.”
Both protect their vocal instruments, eschewing shout-loud nightclubs, smokey bars and late night carousing.
“We’re the most boring people in the world,” says Erivo, a teetotal, vitamin-guzzling avid runner who enjoys cold plunge baths and whose Los Angeles home boasts a ‘wellness room’. “We’re not party animals.”
The cast bonded over 16-hour shooting days. Grande offered tarot card readings, and Erivo brought vegan treats. “There was never a grumpy morning,” recalls Grande.
As best friends Glinda and Elphaba drift apart in the film, tensions rose on the set, but the co-stars’ bond pulled them through tough times.
“We love each other very dearly,” says Erivo.
Grande credits Erivo with teaching her how to stand up for herself: “I needed to be able to be a straight shooter and be honest about my feelings.”
Rounding out the cast are Jeff Goldblum as the duplicitous Wizard of Oz, and Michelle Yeoh as the witches’ college headmistress. Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage voices the professorial goat Dr Dillamond, and Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey as Prince Fiyero spent weeks rehearsing for Wicked’s big ballroom scene.
The movie hopes to continue the stage show’s success as a merchandise juggernaut.
Watch out for singing Mattel toys, a Wicked fashion line, signature Starbucks drinks (Glinda’s Pink Potion and Elphaba’s Green Elixir), Lego recreations of the witches’ Shiz University, and naturally a soundtrack album.
The movie has not been without its controversies, however, fuelled by protective fans of the stage musical. Grande was attacked for changing the register of her voice to a higher soprano – “I’ve always done this,” she countered.
Erivo lashed out after fans criticised the film’s advertising poster for not mirroring the stage show’s ad in which Elphaba’s eyes are hidden beneath her witch’s hat.
“Our poster is an homage not an imitation,” Erivo hit back. “To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
Grande, who separated from husband of two years Dalton Gomez last year, caught flak for romancing her married Wicked co-star Ethan Slater, who later divorced his wife.
“I went through a lot of life changes during the filming of this movie,” admits Grande, perhaps channelling Glinda. “I’m not a perfect person, but I’m definitely deeply good, and I’m proud of who I’m becoming.”
Erivo declines to discuss her romantic life, but told Vanity Fair: “I’m a queer person who could have relationships with men or women or neither.”
But she takes inspiration from Elphaba’s rebellious individuality.
“There’s real wonder and defiance in this beautiful character,” she adds. “Really, there’s a bit of wonder and defiance in a lot of us – there’s certainly wonder and defiance in me.”