A number of movie musicals have won Best Picture over the years, and now there’s another title vying for that honor: Jon M. Chu‘s Wicked. The first movie is nominated for a number of 2025 Academy Awards, and fans are eagerly anticipating the second movie to arrive this fall. While the stage to screen adaptation is a clear success, producer Marc Platt revealed a vision he had that didn’t come together. And as a fan I honestly wish it could have.
What we know about Wicked: For Good is fairly limited, although fans of the stage musical know exactly what’s coming narratively. While speaking with THR, Platt revealed that he wanted to originally incorporate something even most offbeat musicals include: an intermission. As he shared:
I remember going to the movies as a kid and watching musicals or Lawrence of Arabia that had intermissions in it, and that was actually my dream for Wicked, that we could do it with intermission. That was one battle I lost.
Honestly, this is a fun idea! Many classic movies (including musicals like The Sound of Music) included intermissions, where audiences could run to the bathroom or stretch their legs before diving back into the story. And it could have been a fun way to not at Wicked‘s origin on the stage.
An intermission for might have made sense if Jon M. Chu and company were trying to squeeze the entire stage musical into one long movie, but Wicked was ultimately split into two movies. And after seeing Cynthia Erivo fly and belt her way through “Defying Gravity”, the year-long wait between films is ultimately just one long intermission.
While no intermission was included, the first Wicked movie definitely featured some excellent nods to the show’s wildly successful tenure on the stage. That includes cameos by original Glinda and Elphaba actresses Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. The movie’s opening shot of Elphaba’s hat was also a nod to the original staging for the opening number “No One Mourns the Wicked”. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
Wicked might not have an intermission, but that concept was recently brought back to theaters with a new release. Namely Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which has two distinct acts, an intermission, and clocks in at 215 minutes. I hope Marc Platt at least finds some comfort in knowing another recent project brought them back to theaters!
The pressure is on for Wicked: For Good to deliver when it hits theaters November 21st as part of the 2025 movie release schedule. And that will only increase if the first movie manages to take home any Academy Awards at the forthcoming ceremony in March. Personally I love the second act of Wicked, so I can’t wait to see it come to life on the big screen.