The acclaimed Broadway musical Wicked was released as a film on Nov. 22, 2024. Since then, the movie has garnered significant attention and received positive reviews from critics and audiences. Rotten Tomatoes has an 89% approval rating from critics and a 98% audience score. 

The movie is packed with worldwide stars. Cynthia Erivo, who plays the main character Elphaba, and Ariana Grande, who portrays the lovable Glinda, bring the beloved Broadway characters to life on the big screen. Other stars of the film include Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Ethan Slater as Boq, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible. 

Wicked has achieved substantial commercial success, grossing over $723 million worldwide. The film received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Actress and Best Picture. Though Erivo and Grande were both nominated, Wicked nabbed just two Academy Award wins: Best Costume Design (Paul Tazewell) and Best Production Design (Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales). 

With the film garnering such attention, it had its fair share of controversy. One of the biggest issues surrounding Wicked was the controversial relationship between main cast members Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater. When filming began in 2022, Grande was still with her husband, Dalton Gomez. A source told US Weekly that the couple was “having issues” and the “distance did not help.” Meanwhile, Slater was in a committed relationship when Wicked began filming. He was married to his high school sweetheart, Lily Jay, and they welcomed their child in 2022. In July 2023, it was confirmed by People that Grande had recently started dating Slater. “Ariana and Dalton separated in January. She and Ethan recently began dating, and he is separated from his wife,” People stated. Meanwhile, a source told US Weekly that “Ariana and Ethan had only begun seeing each other.” At this point, there had been no official statement of a divorce announcement regarding Slater and his wife, People reported. 

On July 21, 2023, sources told Page Six that Slater’s wife was “completely blindsided” by his relationship with Grande. “It’s horrible. They were high school sweethearts. They have a baby! She’s a wreck,” a source from Page Six said. An insider source from the set came forward with more shady allegations, framing Grande and Slater as rather careless in their relationship. According to a source who spoke to US Weekly, “Slater informed his wife of the new relationship mere days before news broke, and it wasn’t a secret on the set, either.” It was reported that Slater and Grande would hold hands in between takes. “Ethan sat Lily down a few days before the news broke about him and Ariana and said he wanted a divorce,” the source added. After this news broke out, Grande was known as a “homewrecker” ruining Ethan and Lily’s relationship. Grande lost many fans after this because they were sick of controversy surrounding her reputation for breaking up relationships. In 2009, Grande allegedly was the cause of a breakup between Rikki Valentina and Christian Fortune.  

Another headline surrounding the Wicked movie was the shocking, unnecessary weight loss from main stars Erivo and Grande. Many fans realized how skinny the stars looked during the press release for the film. Fans made TikTok videos illustrating the jaw-dropping difference in weight before and after the film was made. One fan commented, “Honestly both [Erivo] and Ariana look extremely unwell.” Another fan observed, “It’s honestly scary at this point.”  On the other hand, some fans have come to their defense.  Grande previously spoke about fans’ concerns over her body in a viral TikTok in April 2023, saying that “there are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful” and that her previous physical appearance was “the unhealthiest version of my body.”

A less serious incident occurred between Erivo and a fan edit. A fan edited the Wicked film poster to look more like the original Broadway poster. Erivo commented that “this is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” on her Instagram stories on Oct. 16. She wrote that the fan-edited version is not “cute” and “degraded” her, continuing, “I am a real-life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words, we communicate with our eyes… to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.” 

“I believe Erivo took it out of context and made the poster seem a lot worse than it was,” stated Olympic Heights senior Joseph Gallo when asked about his thoughts on the fan-edit.  “A fan was just expressing their love for the original Broadway play by editing the movie poster to look like the original.” 

The second Wicked movie will be released on Nov. 21, 2025. It will be titled Wicked: For Good. Fans are now starting a conspiracy as to who will be Dorothy in the upcoming movie and how much they will portray from the original Wizard of Oz movie released in 1939. The same cast is set to return for the second movie.