Please Don't Make More 'Wicked' Sequels

Wicked: For Good, to the surprise of nobody, is doing gangbusters at the box office. The musical sequel earned $237.7 million in its opening weekend, outgrossing its predecessor. If this one ends up equalling the worldwide gross of Wicked then the duology will have brought in over $1.6 billion for Universal. Those are some sturdy numbers at a time when box office stats have been wobbly, and only one American film has passed $1 billion this year. As expected, Universal is eager to keep the yellow brick road in place, and they’re now considering ways to make even more Wicked movies.

Speaking to Vulture, the film division’s marketing chief, Michael Moses, revealed they’re already attempting to “figure out” how to expand the franchise even further. “Because of Wicked’s success but also the fanship, we have almost a responsibility to figure out how we can continue in this universe,” Moses said. “Have we figured it out yet? No. But there are things underway.”

“Responsibility”?

Hollywood has been Oz-obsessed for almost as long as there’s been a Hollywood. L. Frank Baum’s books were wildly popular during the early days of the medium, and MGM’s iconic The Wizard of Oz has never stopped making money. While MGM owns the copyright of many of the most recognizable aspects of the story — the shade of the wicked witch’s green skin, the ruby slippers, etc — most of Baum’s books are in the public domain nd have been for decades. Disney has been desperate to latch onto the MGM movie for generations and tried to make its own Oz happen with Return to Oz (terrifying — complimentary) and Oz: the Great and Powerful (terrifying — derogatory.) They even stuck Oz into Once Upon a Time.

Wicked, however, is based on a musical that was adapted from another set of books, that of Gregory Maguire. His Oz reinvention is strictly for adults, centring a surprisingly bleak narrative of apartheid, political terrorism, and sexual assault that was largely softened for the stage show. Maguire wrote a few sequels to Wicked, and a spin-off series about Elphaba’s granddaughter. It’d be interesting to see how those stories would work on film, but I don’t think they’d make sense as sequels to the musical. There’s no scene in Wicked: For Good, for example, where Elphaba gives birth while in a coma. Spoilers.

Mostly, though, I think this is a bad idea. I get it. People love Wicked, and they were willing to overlook the narrative holes and lagging second act to enjoy For Good. But turning that show into a duology of movies never made sense, and making it even more bloated with another musical sequel would be pointless. Musical sequels, on stage and screen, rarely happen and almost never work. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! is actually one of the more successful examples. But mostly, we end up with stuff like Love Never Dies, and nobody wants that.

I would like to see more Oz adaptations. Baum’s books are weird and creative, and the lion’s share of films haven’t even scratched the surface of his ideas. But Hollywood doesn’t want to adapt Oz. It wants to copy the MGM movie. Even Wicked couldn’t help but not-so-subtly homage the 1939 classic in its aesthetic, albeit in a way that didn’t piss off any copyright lawyers. That’s one of the greatest films ever made, after all. But trying to trace it over and over again feels like Hollywood manifest, right? Avoid risks and creativity in favour of the same old stuff. Pay no attention to the CEOs behind the curtain.