Hiding the Other Half: ‘Wicked’ Is the Latest Film to Trim ‘Part One’ From the Title

Just saw part one. As I had suspected, they would’ve been hard pressed to get both acts into one film.

A Broadway show can get away with a lot more compression. There are no establishing shots on a stage. And Wicked, as a musical, moves. The movie didn’t overstay its welcome, it didn’t waste much time. But it still easily filled its runtime.

Making the two acts into two films was a good call. Though I suspect the second film won’t be as good as the first, since I’ve always preferred act 1 of the Broadway show.

It’s really clear to me that the cast and crew weren’t lying when they said they love the musical and wanted to do right by it.

The whole Broadway show can be done in a 2 hour-ish performance live, there is no justification to stretch this to two movies other than corporate greed milking every IP to the limit

Unless its a planned trilogy with 3 strong stories that could semi-standalone (short of context being lost without the other installments) then any movie that needs more than 2 hours should just be a mini series. You wanna tell a 4 hour long story about the Wizard of Oz? Fine, stick it on Netflix and anyone who wants to binge watch it can to make it “feel like a movie” and those who don’t will have 4 - hour long episodes.

I'm starting to suspect that this is why I don't watch as many films as I'd like to. They've all become such a time commitment. Show me what you can do with an hour and a half!

There are still plenty of those. My word the histrionics from some corners around this film are absurd.

Someone's been to the Attack on Titan School of Numbering.

Zeno’s triology: Part 1 Part 2 (Part 1) Part 2 (Part 2 (Part 1)) Part 2 (Part 2 (Part 2 (Part 1))) …

As long as you lose less than half the audience in every fraction, you’ve got to make infinite money.

Is Wicked directed by Gabe Newell?

Starting to look like a prog album:

2028: Wicked, are you there? I’m destroying Dorothy volume iii Through the eyes of Oz

Ah fuck you reminded me of the ending of Spiderverse. Probably at least 2 years away still...

I was so psyched for that movie, but when I found out it was a part one, I lost interest and still haven't seen it

Which Spiderman was a part 1 of 2?

Same, caught it on a plane and was pissed I had to keep sitting there not knowing the actual ending

Yep. Being a patient consumer is the way.

They don't want to pay for the special effects for the sequel if the first movie bombs

But....money....

Also both parts are done as according to the article both were filmed simultaneously.

They literally split it in half so consumers have to double dip tickets to get a fulfilling story

I pretty sure it was public knowledge (even talked about in publicity) Dead Reckoning was two parts.

People aren't going to see a movie that lies about it being a part 1 either, at least not after the first weekend when the word gets out

Pretty sure Dead Reckoning was well and truly out of theatres by the time they made the change.

Infinity War did that too. Ragnarok was also announced as a 2-parter at the same time, but I guess they backed off on that.

I just saw it. If you liked the Broadway show, definitely see the movie. Wait to see it streaming if you don’t want to see it in theaters, but they definitely did right by the musical, and having seen it I’m glad they made it into two films.

Edit: I’m not sure why recommending it based on having seen it earned a downvote…am I not adding to the conversation?

Hope this thing flops.

Why?

I like Wicked. I would’ve preferred a single-movie version, but there is a lot of plot kind of rushed or skipped over in the musical. If they go back to the source material of the book they can flesh some of that out nicely and give more context to the story.

It might be good! It might be terrible. I don’t know yet.

But why hope for it to flop?

Edit, days later having seen the film: It was great, and I have essentially no complaints. Glad they split it into two, it would’ve been far too rushed as a single movie.

I think these clown regime whores are proving the ol' maxim untrue...

not all publicity is good publicity.

when these clowns act like a child, people take notice.

they forgot who pays their bills in the end it seems.

"stfu and dribble" or whatever.

Just saw it. I recommend you go see it. Especially if you liked the Broadway show. They did a good job, and having seen it I’m glad they’re doing the acts as separate movies, it lets them take time with establishing shots and emotional beats. It’s a good time, saw it with a group and we all loved it.

I dunno i went to wicked.com and it looked pretty nice :]

I like a good epic as much as the next person, but this is pushing 3 hours itself. Assuming Part 2 is similar, I definitely don't have the attention span to hold me through a 5 1/2 hour, 2-part musical. Yikes.

I'm trying to think of any musical that would be tolerable at 2x the original runtime.

The running time of this movie is 2hr 40min, so just shy of the 2hr 45min runtime of the play (including a 15 minute intermission) but only covering the first half of the story.

Dune I can give a pass to because Frank Herbert originally wrote it as a trilogy and combined it into one book. It has pretty clear chunks breaking it up. They absolutely should have been better about advertising what it was, but it's hard to cover all that content succinctly

Wicked however is based off a 2 hour and 45 minute Broadway show with a 15 minute intermission. There is no good reason that a movie that can have tighter transistons, faster costume changes, and no reused cast should be longer than the Broadway show. Let alone twice as long and spread over multiple films