Wicked proves the importance of keeping the original soundtrack
Illustration by Neha Saxena.
I viscerally remember how I felt when I first watched the trailer for the live-action version of Aladdin — I cried. The songs, cut with crisp dance clips, and the way scenes were teased and then pulled away, sparked a feeling of childhood wonder. I immediately felt the need to see it.
However, it’s been a while since a trailer for a movie-musical has pulled me in this way. Many writers today choose to distance movie-musical adaptations from what they’re adapting — they remove plot points from the stage shows, and eliminate almost all of the original songs. This is probably an effort to avoid being labelled as “cringe,” as musicals often are — especially in the case of popular franchises such as Mean Girls, which is meant to appeal to general audiences.
When Wicked (2024) was announced, I was worried it would be the same; replacing entire songs with electric guitar riffs, fast fashion costuming, the works. Thankfully, my fears were put to rest with the first official trailer, which premiered during Super Bowl LVIII in February 2023.
Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda in the movie, sings the iconic song “Popular” in the first 30 seconds of the trailer, proving she was right for the role after controversy surrounding her casting. Her rendition is a beautiful opening to the rest of the trailer, which also includes vocals from Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba.
Only Popular and Defying Gravity are featured, but I was grateful that the effort was made to arrange the songs in a satisfying way, so that the emotional journey of the trailer was clear.
Around Wicked’s release, an additional trailer was released, demonstrating how the cast sang the majority of the music live on-set. This trailer once again forwards Grande, as she riffs backstage in her Glinda costume, while Erivo is shown flipping around in the air on her witch’s broom, reminiscent of a RedBull stunt video.
Using live vocals was important to the film’s director and production team:
“Effectively, our movie set is also a recording studio,” said director Jon M. Chu in the trailer. “So that raw and real emotion that we are recording on set right now will be what you hear and experience in the theatre.”
I recently saw Wicked, and I agree. While there is definitely still reverb and audio editing, the vocals are ultimately authentic, and sound great. The film followed a classic movie-musical format, where writers convert running musical sections into dialogue, but dress up all the main songs into big numbers. This was a relief to me, because it means the movie feels similar in structure to the original stage show.
Wicked had fast and mesmerizing group choreography, which was amazing to see, because ensemble is the core of theatre. Other adaptations which omit their ensemble often feel empty as a result. Dancing Through Life was one of my favourite numbers, because it exemplifies how to properly adapt a showtune for the silver screen. The new version of the song doesn’t just mirror the original — the production is completely different — but the essence of the song remains.
The film version of Dancing Through Life makes you think this is how it was always intended to be — crescendoing alongside an upbeat dance number, where huge, cylindrical spinning library shelves are used as jungle gyms for acrobats to flip on, and Jonathan Bailey gets to show off his triple-threat qualities as Prince Fiyero.
Every main character sings at some point in the film, and their performances were all electric. My one concern is the long gap before the second part of the movie will come out, which covers Act II of the musical. There was a world where the entire musical fit in one film, but, in a statement posted on X in 2022, director Jon M. Chu said synthesizing the material was a challenge.
“As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years,” he wrote.
But could a November 2025 release date for the second half of the movie musical dull the hype that the first half has built? If the eight-year-long marketing campaign for the first film — which has been a box office success — is any indication, audiences will be just fine waiting a year for Act II.
I know I am.
