Why Wicked worked (and other movie musicals missed)

Note: This is a spoiler-free rant about movie musicals, but do watch “Wicked Part I”!

Have you seen that one TikTok ad for “Wicked”? The one where it’s like *clap clap clap* and Ariana Grande goes, “Everyone! I have an announcement!” before Cynthia Erivo does her iconic war cry into the sun? Yeah, that one. Or maybe you’ve seen those videos of people trying out the mystery cake pops and cupcakes, hoping to get the green one. 

Evidently, the marketing team went crazy for the roll-out of the “Wicked” movie, which came out on Nov. 22. Both critics and spectators had nice things to say about the film. As such, when I went to watch the movie on Tuesday, my expectations were through the roof. To my surprise, I found myself enjoying the film despite my presumptions about cinematic adaptations of beloved Broadway musicals. Before I get into why I love this movie (and have been listening to the official soundtrack on repeat), allow me to discuss these doubts about the musical film genre.

See, I like theater. I work as a house manager at the Modlin Center for the Arts. I’m involved in the University of Richmond’s theater and dance department, both onstage and backstage. Heck, I even helped direct a few student pieces for New Faces and the Musical Theater Showcase. I enjoy watching musicals, especially since there weren’t many I had access to back home. Part of Richmond’s appeal to me was the ability to watch shows at the Altria Theater (thank you, Trader’s Fund)! Even with all this experience, I had doubts about movie musicals.

A big problem with movie musicals is reenvisioning plotlines to match a modern “typical movie viewing” audience. Let's use the 2024 film “Mean Girls” (no, not the 2004 classic) as an example. With it being the 20th anniversary of the original film, many fans thought this was a remake or an homage to the original, with only a few knowing that it was adapted into a stage musical in 2017. I like both the musical and the movie, but they are two different worlds with the same name. You have comedy fanatics and theater kids rivaling over the same franchise. 

In an attempt to market the movie to a more mainstream audience, the film’s producers remade a lot of the songs to be more “easy to listen to.” “Sexy,” Karen Smith’s big song on Halloween costumes changed genres to a more danceable club hit. “Meet the Plastics” was a significantly longer song in the stage musical, as we got to know about each of the “Plastics.” The movie version was stripped down and shortened to Regina George’s iconic line. Most notably, songs were made to match the actor’s singing abilities, like how “Stupid with Love” changed from an upbeat loud song to a slow indie-core song. 

Just a quick interjection here: even before I saw ‘Wicked’, my TikTok feed was filled with clips of interviews and facts about the movie. One fun fact is that Jon Chu, the director of the film, initially proposed remaking “Popular” with a hip-hop twist to match Grande’s music releases. She quickly rejected the proposal, though I’d be interested to hear how it could sound given her pop remake of the same song back in 2014.

Back to “Mean Girls”, the movie saw mixed reviews from audience members, split between hardcore OG fans who expected a remake of the original versus fans of the stage musical, who felt many core elements were missing from the film adaptation. By fixating on the conventionalization of an unorthodox spin-off, the producers fell short of recapturing both sides of their already established fanbase. 

Now, we’ve seen a variety of movie adaptations of stage musicals, all to various levels of success. I am a sucker for the 2008 “Mamma Mia!” musical adaptation, though critics are less fond of it. Don’t even get me started on the disaster that is the movie adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen” in 2021 (no, I don’t think a 30-year-old man can realistically pull off the role of a high school student). Perhaps it’s a form of anchoring bias. We’re so used to the original songs that any significant changes make us feel uncomfortable, yearning for what we knew and loved.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the premise of adapting a musical into a movie is necessarily bad. We’ve seen great examples of stage musicals in a movie: “Tick Tick Boom” with Andrew Garfield is one the first that comes to mind! The issue lies in the inability to capture the magic of live theatre in a lot of these film adaptations. People watch musicals with the intention of escapism, to witness a world outside of their own. Films, too, have this profound effect, but transforming mediums takes more than camera equipment. It requires a significant amount of world-building. 

That’s where I think “Wicked” works. 

The movie was always marketed as what it simply was, a movie musical about Elphaba and Glinda before we know them as the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch, respectively. The musical is very unapologetically theatrical, which the movie plays on. There weren’t attempts at modernizing or remaking the essential elements of the musical, which is what captured audiences in the first place. The musical is very whimsical and magical, transporting audiences into the fictional world of Oz. The task of portraying the Emerald City seemed daunting, but I feel they played it off successfully.

I think the movie does that successfully, making audiences feel immersed in a new world, and giving them the sense of escapism that many yearn for. Both Erivo and Grande play their roles with so much emotional depth that you can’t help but empathize with both of them. Even though the movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes long (the whole musical is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the movie is only Act I), I didn’t see any bits that could be cut down or reduced. Each scene was necessary for story development, audience engagement, character development and world-building. 

As someone who hasn’t watched the musical before, I recognize that there are limitations to my take on the musical, mainly because I haven’t seen it on stage. But as someone who has watched many clips on TikTok (thank you slime tutorials), and heard “Defying Gravity” many times, I still fell in love with the movie. As tears streamed down my face at the end, there’s no denying the impact of the movie.

Now, be sure to hold space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity,” as that’s my line ?.