Why 'Wicked' Is Being Split Into Two Separate Movies: Part 2 Is Coming in 2025

justjared.com:

The first half of the Wicked movie is already in theaters, and Part 2 being released on November 21, 2025. You may be wondering why they decided to split the film into two parts.

An explanation was given in the past about the decision to make the Broadway musical into two separate films. Keep reading to find out more… Stephen Schwartz, the composer behind the fan-favorite musical, explained the reason why the Jon M.

Chu film will be made into two parts, despite it obviously being a one-part show that has played on Broadway for over a decade. “We found it very difficult to get past ‘Defying Gravity’ without a break,” he once told fan newsletter The Schwartz Scene. “That song is written specifically to bring a curtain down, and whatever scene to follow it without a break just seemed hugely anti-climactic.” “The truth is we tried for some time to make it one movie, even if it had to be one very long movie,” he added. “But we kept running into two problems.

The first is that even as a very long single movie, it required us cutting or omitting things that we wanted to include and that we think fans of the show and the story will appreciate.” The second reason, as he explained it, came down to the show-stopper number, and the inability for what comes at the beginning of Act 2 to escape its gravitational pull. “So, for these two reasons,” Schwartz continued, “plus the excitement of doing something that’s never been done before with a musical, we have decided to do two movies.