Wicked: For Good

Wicked: For Good (also known as Wicked: Part Two) is a 2025 American musical fantasy film directed by Jon M. Chu and written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox. The sequel to Wicked (2024), it adapts the second act of the 2003 stage musical by Stephen Schwartz and Holzman, which was loosely based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel, a re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaptation. Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh, and Jeff Goldblum return from the first film. Set in the Land of Oz before and during the events of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the film follows Elphaba and Glinda in their new identities as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

Universal Pictures and Marc Platt, who both produced the stage musical, announced the film adaptation in 2012. After a long development and multiple delays, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chu was hired to direct, with Erivo and Grande cast in 2021. The adaptation was split into two parts to avoid omitting plot points and further develop the characters. Principal photography on both films began in December 2022 in England, was interrupted in July 2023 by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and resumed and concluded in January 2024.

Wicked: For Good premiered at the Suhai Music Hall in São Paulo on November 4, 2025, and was released in the United States on November 21. It has grossed $527.8 million on a $150 million budget, becoming the second-highest-grossing Oz film and musical film adaptation. Both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute listed it among the top-ten films of 2025, and it received several accolades, including nominations for five Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards.

Plot

Some time after defying the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Elphaba Thropp, now branded as the Wicked Witch of the West by Madame Morrible, continues battling for Animal rights from a forest hideout. Glinda Upland, now the Wizard's spokesperson, is engaged to Fiyero Tigelaar, now Captain of the Gale Force. As Oz celebrates the grand opening of the Yellow Brick Road, Fiyero reveals he is attempting to locate Elphaba, though Glinda insists Elphaba does not want to be found.

Elphaba encounters some Animals leaving Oz, including her former caretaker Dulcibear, and encourages them to fight against the Wizard. The Cowardly Lion dissuades them, exposing Elphaba as the reason for the Wizard's flying monkey spies. Elphaba visits her sister Nessarose, who has inherited their father's governorship of Munchkinland. Nessarose prohibits the Munchkins, including her servant Boq, from leaving without her approval. Elphaba enchants Nessarose's shoes, giving her the ability to fly. Boq, deciding Nessarose no longer needs him because of this and having learned of Glinda and Fiyero's wedding, tries to leave Nessarose. She casts a love spell from the Grimmerie, but it backfires, shrinking his heart. Elphaba's attempt to save him turns him into a tin man.

Elphaba returns to the Emerald City, where Glinda implores her to join the Wizard. She accepts under the condition that the flying monkeys be freed. Chistery, one of the monkeys, reveals several Animals imprisoned within the Wizard's lair, including Dr. Dillamond, who has lost his ability to speak. Reaffirming her resolve to fight the Wizard, Elphaba frees the Animals, interrupting Fiyero and Glinda's wedding. Fiyero helps Elphaba escape and joins her. Concluding that they are having an affair, Glinda vengefully suggests that the Wizard and Morrible lure out Elphaba by spreading a rumor that Nessarose is in trouble.

At their hideout, Elphaba and Fiyero profess mutual love. He sends her to an abandoned castle, Kiamo Ko, for shelter. Morrible, realizing a simple rumor would not fool Elphaba, creates a tornado that takes a house from Kansas, which fatally crushes Nessarose. Glinda gives Nessarose's shoes to the house's occupant, Dorothy Gale, and directs her to the Wizard, promising that he can help her return home. A fight begins between Glinda and Elphaba before the Gale Force arrives. Fiyero intervenes and holds back the guards by threatening to kill Glinda, who finally accepts that he loves Elphaba. While the guards drag Fiyero into a field and savagely beat him, Elphaba escapes with the monkeys to Kiamo Ko, where she casts a spell to save Fiyero's life. Believing she has failed, and lamenting all her previous failed attempts to do right, she decides to embrace her perceived "wickedness".

Dorothy, alongside Boq, the Lion, and a scarecrow, meets the Wizard, who instructs them to kill Elphaba and bring him her broom. Boq rallies the citizens of Emerald City against Elphaba. Lamenting that her public image is built on lies, Glinda confronts Morrible about the tornado, but Morrible rebuffs her. Glinda rushes to Kiamo Ko to warn Elphaba about the mob. Elphaba kidnaps Dorothy and imprisons her to retrieve the shoes just as Glinda arrives. After Chistery informs them of Fiyero's apparent death, Elphaba decides to surrender, imploring Glinda to withhold the truth from the people and entrusting her with the Grimmerie. They reaffirm their friendship in a tearful farewell. Glinda hides and watches in horror as Dorothy douses Elphaba in water, seemingly melting her.

Having regained speech, Chistery gives Glinda Elphaba's green elixir bottle, which belonged to Elphaba's mother. She brings it to the Wizard, who realizes that he is Elphaba's biological father and the reason for her power. Ashamed of his actions, he leaves Oz at Glinda's demand. Glinda directs the monkeys to apprehend and arrest Morrible for her crimes. She finishes telling her story to the Munchkins and reestablishes rights for the Animals, who get their voices back. The Scarecrow—revealed to be Fiyero, transformed by Elphaba's spell—returns to Kiamo Ko and discovers Elphaba hiding under a trapdoor, having faked her death to ensure that she is never seen in Oz again. They depart Oz while the Grimmerie opens for Glinda.

Cast

Additionally, Keala Settle, Luisa Guerreiro, Adam James and Alice Fearn reprise their roles from Wicked as Miss Coddle, Dr. Dillamond's movement artist, and Glinda's parents, respectively. Courtney-Mae Briggs appears in archival footage as Mrs. Thropp, Elphaba and Nessarose's late mother.

Production

Pre-production

A film adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked was announced in 2012, with scheduled release dates of December 20, 2019, December 22, 2021, December 25, 2024, and November 27, 2024. After numerous delays, the first film was released on November 22, 2024. In April 2022, director Jon M. Chu announced that the adaptation would be split in two parts, saying:

As we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of 'Wicked' into a single film without doing some real damage to it... 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. We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one 'Wicked' movie but two! With more space, we can tell the story of 'Wicked' as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.

Stephen Schwartz echoed Chu's sentiment in June, while also confirming that a new song was in the works for one of the two films:

We found it very difficult to get past 'Defying Gravity' without a break... That song is written specifically to bring a curtain down, and whatever scene to follow it without a break just seemed hugely anti-climactic... Even as a very long single movie, it required us cutting or omitting things that we wanted to include and that we think fans of the show and the story will appreciate. What we have discussed is that changes need to be 'additive,' to use (producer) Marc Platt's term. They need to add something to the story or the characters. They can't just be changes to do something different. I feel confident that by the time the movie is made, if we all continue to have the same degree of input, I could have a conversation with anyone who has a question about any of the changes made from the stage show and justify why I think it's better for the movie.

In November 2022, Schwartz said the film would include two new songs "to meet the demands of the storytelling". In December 2024, Chu said the film would have a darker tone and that the character of Dorothy Gale would have a more prominent role compared to the musical.

Filming

Principal photography began alongside Wicked on December 9, 2022, and had nearly finished by July 2023 before production was suspended due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Filming resumed and concluded in January 2024. The song vocals were recorded live on set at the insistence of Erivo and Grande, with production sound mixer Simon Hayes using a variation of the same recording techniques he implemented on Les Misérables. Christopher Scott choreographed the musical numbers.