A big name has been added to the cast of Wicked. Variety reports that Michelle Yeoh, who was recently met with great acclaim for her performance in A24's Everything Everywhere All at Once, has been cast for a key role in the live-action feature film adaptation of the popular stage show. She'll be playing Madame Morrible, headmistress of Crage Hall at Shiz University.
Jon M. Chu is directing the movie. It was previously announced that the film would be respectively starring Ariana Grande (Sam & Cat) and Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) as witches Glinda and Elphaba. Recently, it was reported that Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park) was also in talks to play the Wizard. Other cast members who've been attached include Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton) as Fiyero and Ethan Slater (The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage!) as Boq.
As there's a lot of story to tell with Wicked, the movie has been split up into two halves that will be released a year apart. Wicked: Part One is planned to be released in December 2024 while Wicked: Part Two will follow in December 2025.
Wicked Will Be Made Into a Two Movies
"It became impossible to wrestle the story of Wicked into a single film without doing some real damage to it," Chu previously said in a statement addressing the decision to split up Wicked. "As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years. We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one Wicked movie but two!"
He added, "With more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters."
Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, serving as an origin story that explains the history of Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, along with her relationship with fellow witch Galinda, aka Glinda the Good Witch. With music by Stephen Scwhartz and book by Winnie Holzman, the show has been a tremendous hit on Broadway and is still going strong with continued performances. Plans to make a feature film adaptation go back many years, but it hasn't been until recently when the project started to make some real traction.
Wicked: Part One will be released in theaters on Dec. 24, 2024.