From stars’ dramatic weight loss to an ‘offensive’ poster, behind the scenes strife of blockbuster film Wicked revealed
WICKED is paving its way to box office gold – with sell-out screenings and £4million made in one day at cinemas.
But the Wizard Of Oz prequel – starring US pop star Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good Witch and Brit Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp – has been dogged by rumour and scandal.
While it is magical family viewing, it is adapted from a disturbing novel containing bizarre adult material and racist language.
Wicked started as a book in 1995 by Gregory Maguire, before being turned into a stage musical in 2003.
Both reveal how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 movie, The Wizard Of Oz.
But getting the new film into cinemas has not been without controversy.
Fans have worried about Ariana and Cynthia’s weight loss, two married stars who fell for each other, and an edited poster that was branded “offensive”.
The British-made film, though, is predicted to be this year’s equivalent of Barbie, earning £1billion.
Here, Grant Rollings and Howell Davies look at Wicked’s tricky journey along the yellow brick road to the big screen . . .
X-rated book behind hit
WHILE the Wicked movie is a family-friendly PG delight, the weird book on which it is based contains some very adult material.
In 1995, Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West by Gregory Maguire reframed the human magician who rules Oz as a tyrant and rapist.
Meanwhile, Elphaba’s mum has a throuple relationship with two men, and there’s a description of a mum and daughter having sex with a man in a bizarre puppet show.
The Shiz University students visit a BDSM club, where a dwarf is strapped to a tiger while it performs a sex act on a naked woman.
Kids could also be scared by scenes of a minister being skewered, cooked and eaten.
Weight row rumbles on
FANS are worried about the real-life wellbeing of Wicked’s leading ladies, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
People have made remarks about their appearance online, with comments including that the pair look “extremely unwell”, and one cruel critic asking: “Are they being starved?”
Meanwhile, at least one film reviewer has questioned if 31-year-old Ariana’s very slender hero Glinda is a good role model for children.
In the film, her already petite waist is pulled tight into a corset by her friends for a ball.
Whether all that hard work making the film and a lengthy press tour have contributed to her weight loss is unclear.
But Ariana has previously expressed her frustration about this very public debate over her body.
In 2023, she claimed that “the unhealthiest version of my body” was when she was bigger.
She said: “I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them, and eating poorly, and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider me ‘healthy’.”
And she asked her fans to be “gentle with each other and with yourselves” when having such discussions.
A home-grown hit
THE magical land of Oz is not in Hollywood any more – because Wicked was partly filmed in a Buckinghamshire village.
Each film in the two-instalment series, which will see a sequel released next November, cost an estimated £120million to make.
They were filmed at the hi-tech new Sky Studios in Elstree on the outskirts of London.
The production was so big that the studio’s 13 sound stages were not enough, and six more were hired at nearby Leavesden Studios.
Nine million tulips were planted in Norfolk so that the fictional Munchkinland appeared real.
And huge sets were built by hand for the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz lives, and the Hogwarts-like Shiz University, where Glinda and Elphaba study.
Production designer Nathan Crowley ordered sets up to 50ft high and insisted on a 32-tonne Emerald City Express train that could run on tracks.
Poster row rant
CYNTHIA realised she overreacted in October to fans digitally changing the Wicked posters.
When she saw a photoshopped version of an image that no longer showed her eyes, she ranted on Instagram that “this is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen”.
She continued: “To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
A fan going by the online name Midosommar said: “It was an edit I made in ten minutes to pay homage to the original poster.”
Midosommar’s version was closer to the one used by the Broadway musical.
As a result of the row, the edited poster has now been viewed online more than seven million times.
Cynthia later revealed: “I’m passionate about it. And I know the fans are passionate about it.
“And I think, for me, it was just like a human moment of wanting to protect little Elphaba.”
A Wicked romance?
IN the movie, Munchkin student Boq suffers from a bad case of unrequited love for Ariana’s character, Glinda.
Off screen, US actor Ethan Slater, 32, who plays Boq, was much more successful.
He reportedly started seeing Ariana while shooting the two-part blockbuster in Britain.
That has proved to be controversial because both Ethan and Ariana were married to other people at the time.
The stars are still together.
Ethan has divorced wife Lilly Jay, with whom he has a two-year-old son, while Ariana formally ended her three-year marriage to Dalton Gomez in March.
According to insiders, they only got together after breaking up with their partners.
Sing-along for Christmas
THE big debate among fans of the musical is whether it is acceptable to sing along to the film’s tunes in a cinema, just as they would for the stage version.
The lyrics to Wicked’s stand-out songs Defying Gravity and I’m Not That Girl are well known to devoted theatre-goers, who will be tempted to belt them out.
But one cinema chain in the US has asked audiences to stay in their seats and keep quiet.
Anyone wishing to join in will have to wait for a special sing-along version of the movie, which is planned for Christmas time.
This interactive Wicked is definitely going to be shown in the United States.
But it is unclear whether it will be available in Britain.
Magic by numbers
ON its first day in cinemas earlier this month, Wicked took £38million in the US and £4million in the UK.
Demand for tickets suggests it will do better than Inside Out 2, which has been 2024’s best performer financially to date.
Its pre-orders were the third-best of all time for a PG-rated movie, exceeding Pixar’s kids’ flick.
A strong winter blockbuster line-up, which includes Moana 2, Paddington In Peru and Gladiator II, should help prevent more picture houses from closing.
Vue cinema boss and founder Tim Richards said: “The pre-sales are tracking in line with Barbie’s last year and it looks like Wicked could be the biggest film of 2024.
“We are looking forward to seeing our customers in pink and green, enjoying the big-screen experience with their family and friends.”
Wicked had the best opening ever for a movie adapted from a Broadway musical.
In London it has been watched by 12million theatre-goers – many of whom will now likely want to catch the cinema version.
We just Glicked
LAST year, when Margot Robbie’s Barbie went up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the same week, the cinematic double-header was quickly dubbed Barbenheimer.
This month, it is Glicked – Gladiator II versus Wicked.
On November 15, director Sir Ridley Scott released his long awaited sequel to his 2000 hit Gladiator, starring Paul Mescal.
It has already racked up £122million at the international box office.
Wicked was released here a week later and looks set to beat that total.
Oppenheimer took just short of a billion dollars, while Barbie did almost one and a half billion dollars of business at cinemas.
But with seven Oscar awards, Nolan’s film was the biggest success critically.
Wicked looks likely to trump both in terms of takings and in gongs handed out.
There is talk of Elphaba actor Cynthia adding to her Emmy, Grammy and Tony with an Oscar.