Wicked is now out in theaters, cleaning up at the box office and delighting critics and audiences alike. Or rather, Wicked: Part 1 is out in theaters. Although the copious marketing doesn't make it obvious, this movie is part one of two; it takes viewers through the end of Act I of the popular musical. Wicked Part 2 will come out on November 21, 2025, pretty much exactly a year after Part 1.
Normally, I'd be annoyed that I would have to wait a year to see the conclusion of a story you can see in one sitting onstage. The Wicked musical has been running in theaters around the world since 2003, and the whole thing takes about 2 hours and 40 minutes to get through, including an intermission. So how is is possible, then, that the movie Wicked: Part 1, which only adapts the first act of that musical, runs 2 hours and 40 minutes itself?
Well, there are a couple of short scenes added for the movie, like a chase scene towards the end involving a hot air balloon, but even if you cut out that stuff, the movie would still be way longer than Act 1 of the stage show. Otherwise, the movie is very faithful to the stage version, with every song, line and beat accounted for. So why is it so much longer?
Without having seen the show on stage recently, the only explanation I can think of is that the movie takes more time to set up scenes and lets its actors trade dialogue at a pace that more closely resembles real life, rather than the heightened pace at which it's exchanged during a play. We're not as willing to accept overt theatricality when watching a movie, even though Wicked: Part 1 remains plenty theatrical.
At the end of the day, it doesn't much matter, because while Wicked: Part 1 is long movie, it doesn't feel like a long movie. When Part 2 comes out next Thanksgiving, we'll hopefully have an epic double feature on our hands.
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