Any man who is in a relationship and lives within striking distance of a major metropolitan area will, at some point in the last 20 years, have been threatened with going to see Wicked. The more skillful among you may have managed to avoid it. I did not. For others like me, gentlemen you have my sympathies.
It is hard to think of a more gobsmacking display of theatrical mediocrity being senselessly elevated to near-mythical status simply because it tells women what they want to hear. What plot there is, it is replete in “the message” while being customarily lacking in both reason and accountability, the hallmark of this kind of programming.
The songs are screechy and overbearing, and while she is whooping and clapping at some green bint screaming about “Defying Gravity” (because it’s ’empowering’, see?) you are alternating between checking your watch, wondering if the theater bar is still open, and calmly dismantling the entire point of the show in your mind just to make it to the end.
Still, because clearly there isn’t enough stuff out there for the foam-brained right now, it seems we are to be made to suffer all over again, this time in movie theaters or, horror or horrors, at home. A two-part film adaption is even closer than we feared. It has wrapped filming.
Ariana Grande confirmed this on Instagram, because of course. She said:
“I will never forget even a minute of my year(s) with her either. Or you. Or my Cyn[thia Erivo]. Permanently and preferably intertwined. I am so inexplicably thankful that we got to add so many soggy eyelashes to the collection.
There aren’t quite words yet but. But. Thank you, Jon [M. Chu], for leading the way with such compassion, openness, brilliance, and kindess. I have never seen someone conduct a space the way you do.”
Wicked began shooting in December 2022 in the UK but was paused due to the strikes. With just finishing touches left to film, it was completed in less than a month.
Alongside Grande, Cynthia Erivo stars as Elphaba, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle, Marissa Bode as Nessarose Thropp, Bronwyn James as ShenShen, and Ethan Slater as Boq.
Wicked: Part One is set for a November 27th release this year with Wicked: Part Two opening November 26th 2025.
Gentlemen, consider this fair warning. For the love of God, be somewhere else at these times.
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