Every Tiny Speck of Wicked: For Good Crumbs

On Wednesday, May 21, the Wicked movies’ Instagram account started an ominous countdown. “Six months” a title card read over a single foreboding piano chord. Six months? Six months until we see a movie that was filmed before the first movie even came out. Six months until we’ll finally get to hear those newly written songs. Six months until Cynthia Erivo utters the most controversial word ever to hit musical-theater schools across the country: “Fiyero!” In the meantime, Wicked stans will have to satiate themselves with bread-crumb details while we wait for our long national nightmare finally to be over. Below, everything we know about Wicked: For Good.

What happens in the next act of Wicked?

Warning: This section has minor spoilers for the stage musical Wicked.

Technically, we don’t yet know if the Wicked movie will totally follow the story of the musical, but it will still star Ariana Grande, the woman who wouldn’t let the previous movie change the line “The wizard will see you now!” In that case, following Elphaba’s escape from the Wizard, she goes into hiding. Glinda and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) marry, and she sings the eternal banger “Thank Goodness.” But he’s still in love with Elphaba and searches for her as Glinda works with the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). To punish Elphaba, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh’s weather witch) comes up with the bright idea of making a big ol’ tornado. From there, it’s a race through iconic numbers like “As Long As You’re Mine,” “No Good Deed,” and, of course, Glinda and Elphaba’s duet “For Good.”

While the plot does start to converge with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, Dorothy never fully appears onstage. Director Jon M. Chu hasn’t been particularly forthcoming about how she’ll be portrayed in For Good, but he has implied she’s more present. “In the show, Dorothy is around. They have to intersect, and you can only tease it so much,” he told Variety in 2024. “I won’t say whether she’s a character, necessarily, in movie two. There’s a part of me that wants everyone’s Dorothy to be whatever Dorothy they want. And yet, there is interaction and some crossover. So I’ll leave that up to ‘Part Two.’”

How does the poster look?

No trailer or music has been released. What we do have is the most recent poster from May 14. In the image, Glinda and Elphaba gaze at each other from separate cliffs while the yellow brick road runs between them. “You will be changed,” the tagline intones.

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Will there be any new music?

Yes! Wicked: For Good is not just sticking to the iconic songs. Composer Stephen Schwartz revealed in a 2022 newsletter that two entirely new songs will be added. “There are two new songs in the second movie that are complete songs in themselves, and then there are new sections in some of the existing songs in both movies,” he said. “All the new material, of course, is to meet the demands of the storytelling.” Erivo told Variety she had worked on Elphaba’s new song. “When we filmed it, the entire crew was in tears,” she said. “I hope audiences are ready — it’s a song that speaks to the heart of who Elphaba is.” The other is for Glinda. “It shows a side of her we’ve never seen before,” Grande added for Variety. “In the stage show, this transformation happens offstage. But in the movie, we get to see her make the decision that defines who she is. It’s a privilege to sing this song and be the first Glinda to bring it to life.”

And when’s the release date?

Wicked: For Good comes out pre–Thanksgiving weekend on November 21, 2025. Something to be thankful for, thank goodness.

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