The Emerald City's "One Short Day" is turning into two longer stays.
The film will now be released on theaters as two films, rather than one production, have been announced Tuesday. The first film has imposed a premiere date of December 2024, with the second coming the following Christmas.
"As we prepared the production over the past year, it became increasingly clear that it would be impossible to tie the narrative of 'Wicked' into a single film without doing any significant damage to it. "As we tried to cut songs of smaller characters, these decisions felt like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years," Chu said in a statement.
Chu has pledged to broaden the characters with the two-part production. will star as Elphaba and will star as Glinda. Additional casting has not been confirmed.
This is the latest twist in the film's history of bringing the long-running Broadway hit to film. Universal has started developing the project since 2004. It was previously director Stephen Daldry in 2020 due to scheduling issues, and the original release date of December 22, 2021 was postponed due to COVID-19 production interruptions.
The Wizard of Oz prequel features Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda the Good Witch, according to Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the score to the musical, is adapting Wicked for film with Winnie Holzman. Marc Platt, the filmmaker of the Broadway musical, is also producing the film.
The musical has consistently been one of the highest-grossing events in the entertainment industry and brings in more than $1 million per week on Broadway.
