Wicked

Looks like they might increase the Homoerotic Subtext for the film Ephalba and Glinda.

I'm curious if they'll reference anything more from the Baum books. I also hope Glinda actually knows magic in this one; one thing that always bothered me about the musical was Glinda not knowing any magic since her bubble was clearly a machine. Her consistent trait in the Oz books and movies, as well as the Wicked novel, was at least knowing some magic.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Feb 17th 2024 at 11:19:30 AM

I think Glinda in the musical eventually *did* magic ("Not all of us can come and go by BUBBLE!"), just that she doesn't do any on-stage or that's relevant to the plot.

My mom really wants to see this one.

So, what song are you guys looking forward to the most in Part One? For me it is either Defying Gravity or Popular.

Probably Defying Gravity as well.

Defying Gravity is the obvious choice, but for good reason. And it will end Part One, apparently full-stop, so they’ll be making it suitably epic I’m sure. I’m interested to see Ariana Grande do both Popular and Loathing.

And I’m still hoping/expecting there will be at least one new song in each part they can submit for the Best Original Song Oscar.

Who has money on there being an original Award-Bait Song written for the movie?

I do, as I mentioned. There’s strong precedent. Just to take one example, “Suddenly” from Les Misérables (2012).

Edit: Ok, so if you’re talking about the trope Award-Bait Song, that being an end-credits power ballad, which is more specific than I remembered before I checked, then no, probably not. Having such a song right after “Defying Gravity” would take away from the impact. But I do think there will be an original song designed to qualify for the Oscar that excludes previously released music (even in musicals built around their music).

Ah, there’s the trope, Movie Bonus Song. I think Part 1 and Part 2 will each have one.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Mar 3rd 2024 at 9:51:18 AM

That makes sense. What about the rating? We thinking PG or PG-13?

I could imagine we'll likely have multiple additional songs added to the show. Unlike adaptations like Les Mis, The Color Purple, or Chicago, we're getting JUST the first act of the show as an entire film.

Comparatively, we're getting a lot more breathing room. Room that can be used to develop or flesh out the other characters (Boq, Nessa). And, well, the main driving way to do that in a musical is... via musical numbers.

To put in metrics; Act 1 has 10 musical numbers starting with No One Mourns The Wicked and ending with Defying Gravity. And we're going to have, what? 2 hours to get through all of those?

If we get only one or two in Part 1, I would imagine we could also see more musical numbers added to Part 2 as Act 2 is much shorter and thinner on numbers by comparison. Act 2 has eight numbers starting with Thank Goodness and ending with the Finale (Discounting Wicked Witch of the East since it's short and mostly dialogue). If Part 2 is also around eight hours, there's so much more time to let Act 2's content breathe.

Like, I could also see Madam Morrible getting a villain song. She summons the tornado to kill Nessa basically off-screen in the show and that works fine there because, well, it's a stage. But a movie? Give her a villain number. Why not?

I wouldn't be surprised if they try to add a couple of songs. I hope they aren't just like songs for Elphaba and Glinda though. Like I love both characters but they already have a lot of songs.

Sounds like a good idea; how's Michelle Yeoh's singing voice?

Article from deadline: Apparently they did live vocals for this movie, like Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables.

https://deadline.com/2024/03/wicked-live-vocals-ariana-grande-cynthia-erivo-director-john-m-chu-1235865406/

There's a 5-hour cut of the films that they're currently editing. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/wicked-director-jon-m-chu-interview-career-diversity-1235872142/

I wonder if we’ll ever get both films edited into one? Like they said they would do with Kill Bill.

Well, let's hope they don't sound dehydrated.