“Wicked” Hits November Release Date, Arriving in Theatres Sooner

The musical film directed by Jon M. Chu, which Universal Pictures announced on Monday, will open in theatres on November 22. The movie will now be released on November 27, which was originally planned to be the day before Thanksgiving. This early release date will allow the movie to gain more exposure before the holiday season. Additionally, it can dodge Disney’s Moana 2 thanks to the revised date.

It will now go up against Gladiator II from Paramount, which opens in theatres on November 22 and stars Paul Mescal in Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his 2000 historical epic that won an Oscar.

Wicked is a stage adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, written by Gregory Maguire, was first published in 1995. The project is an adaptation of characters from the Oscar-winning 1939 film musical The Wizard of Oz, which starred Judy Garland as Dorothy and was based on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In addition to Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Jeff Goldblum, and Bowen Yang, the film stars Grande as Glinda and Erivo as Elphaba. Producers David Stone and Marc Platt are involved.

“We dreamed very, very, very big for Wicked,” Chu told the CinemaCon crowd when debuting footage at the Las Vegas event in April. “A magical land of sights and sounds that will astonish, and performances that will lift your spirits and occasionally break your heart.”

The movie is the first in a planned two-part series, with Wicked: Part Two still slated to open in theatres the day before Thanksgiving in 2025, on November 26, 2025.