Oh, The Places Ariana Grande and Josh Gad'll Go

Jon M. Chu and Jill Culton will direct the duo in the animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss graduation classic.

By Drew Gillis  |  July 15, 2025 | 4:46pm
Michael Baker / The Academy, Terekah Najuwan / ©A.M.P.A.S.
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Oh, The Places Ariana Grande and Josh Gad'll Go
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We may still have a whole other Wicked promo cycle to get through this fall, but Jon M. Chu will stay busy for long after that. Just last week, the director landed Mattel’s upcoming Hot Wheels movie, and today he’s tapped Ariana Grande and Josh Gad to lend their voices to his musical Oh, The Places You’ll Go adaptation, which he will co-direct with Jill Culton. Warner Bros. confirmed the casting on Instagram. 

Grande, who nabbed an Oscar nomination for her role in the first Wicked movie, is clearly up for a new musical with Chu. For her first role post-Wicked, Grande was reportedly determined to find herself a comedy, which she did when she joined the cast of Meet The Parents 4 in May. Accomplishing that apparently freed her up to join an animated musical, the kind of thing that often befits pop stars-turned-actors (see: Taylor Swift in The Lorax, Beyoncé in The Lion King, Justin Timberlake in an assortment of Trolls movies). Gad, meanwhile, hasn’t worked with Chu before, but has some obvious musical bona fides, starring in The Book Of Mormon on Broadway and voicing Olaf in the Frozen movies. 

Chu first became publicly attached to Oh, The Places You’ll Go back in January, also sharing the news that Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the songwriting duo behind La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, will contribute original music to the film. Still no word on what the plot or characters might look like, as the original book features an unnamed protagonist who ventures into a variety of Seussian locales. Guess we’ll stay in The Waiting Place for now!

Oh, The Places You’ll Go is slated for a 2028 IMAX release.

 
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