Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are set to soon defy gravity together, with Deadline reporting that the duo has been cast as the leads in Jon M. Chu’s cinematic adaptation of Wicked. Erivo will play the film’s central role, future Wicked Witch Elphaba, while Grande will play ever-“Popular” social climber Glinda the Good.
We’ve been covering the efforts to get a Wicked film adaptation off the ground for a literal decade at this point, as Hollywood has repeatedly attempted to come to terms with the source material’s Broadway-crushing revisionist spin on L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard Of Oz. Chu—who, between this and In The Heights, is taking some drastic strides to help revive the movie musical in recent years—was attached to the project back in February.
Written by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman (working from the novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire), Wicked has been a fixture on Broadway—give or take the occasional pandemic—for 18 years now, earning Tonys, a Grammy, and more than a billion dollars in box office revenue. A film version has been in the works for nearly as long, delayed at least in part by producers unwilling to stiff themselves on ticket money by giving people a version they could watch at home. (Although, even then, it’s been slow going since Universal committed to the project.)
Erivo, who most recently stars in the upcoming Needle In A Timestack, and who’s fresh off her turn as Aretha Franklin in Genius, is a Broadway veteran, winning the Tony back in 2016 for her lead role in The Color Purple. Grande also got her start on Broadway, before taking the Nickelodeon route to international super stardom. Both are stepping into star-making roles originated by Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth, respectively. There’s no word yet on who else will be playing the rest of the surprisingly unhappy residents of Oz (including the manipulative and dangerous Wiz Who Was) in Chu’s film version of the story.
Wicked is reportedly set to begin filming some time in 2022.
