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Globes never say die!
Five years after a Times investigation dulled the shine of the glitzy Hollywood affair, the 83rd Golden Globe Awards, airing Sunday, will cap off a multi-day series of events and tributes now dubbed “Golden Week.” It appears neither controversy nor potential conflicts of interest have been enough to keep this party down.
Comedian Nikki Glaser, who delivered a good time as the emcee of the 2025 awards, has once again been tapped to host the star-studded ceremony. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” are among the top film nominees, notching nine and eight nods each, respectively. On the television side, “The White Lotus” and “Adolescence” earned the most nominations with six and five nods apiece, respectively.
Actors Helen Mirren and Sarah Jessica Parker were already honored during Thursday’s “Golden Eve” special. Mirren, whose prolific career has included portraying a number of British monarchs, was presented the Cecil B. DeMille Award, while Parker, of “Sex and the City” fame, received the Carol Burnett Award.
The live 2026 Golden Globes telecast kicks off at 5 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+.
(This story will be updated.)
Motion picture — drama
“Sinners”
“It Was Just an Accident”
“Sentimental Value”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“The Secret Agent”
Motion picture — musical or comedy
“One Battle After Another”
“No Other Choice”
“Marty Supreme”
“Blue Moon”
“Bugonia”
“Nouvelle Vague”
Motion picture — animated
“Arco”
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle”
“Elio”
“KPop Demon Hunters”
“Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”
“Zootopia 2”
Cinematic and box office achievement
“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“F1”
“KPop Demon Hunters”
“Sinners”
“Weapons”
“Wicked: For Good”
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”
“Zootopia 2”
Motion picture — non-English language
“It Was Just an Accident”
“No Other Choice”
“The Secret Agent”
“Sentimental Value”
“Sirât”
“The Voice of Hind Rajab”
Performance by a female actor in a motion picture — drama
Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Die My Love”
Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Value”
Tessa Thompson, “Hedda”
Julia Roberts, “After the Hunt”
Eva Victor, “Sorry, Baby”
Performance by a male actor in a motion picture — drama
Joel Edgerton, “Train Dreams”
Oscar Isaac, “Frankenstein”
Dwayne Johnson, “The Smashing Machine”
Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”
Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”
Jeremy Allen White, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere”
Performance by a female actor in a motion picture — musical or comedy
Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked: For Good”
Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue”
Chase Infiniti, “One Battle After Another”
Amanda Seyfried, “The Testament of Ann Lee”
Emma Stone, “Bugonia”
Performance by a male actor in a motion picture — musical or comedy
Timothée Chalamet, “Marty Supreme”
George Clooney, “Jay Kelly”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle After Another”
Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”
Lee Byung-hun, “No Other Choice”
Jesse Plemons, “Bugonia”
Performance by a female actor in a supporting role in any motion picture
Emily Blunt, “The Smashing Machine”
Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value”
Ariana Grande, “Wicked: For Good”
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, “Sentimental Value”
Amy Madigan, “Weapons”
Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”
Performance by a male actor in a supporting role in any motion picture
Benicio Del Toro, “One Battle After Another”
Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein”
Paul Mescal, “Hamnet”
Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”
Adam Sandler, “Jay Kelly”
Stellan Skarsgård, “Sentimental Value”
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”
Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”
Guillermo del Toro, “Frankenstein”
Jafar Panahi, “It Was Just an Accident”
Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value”
Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet”
Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”
Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme”
Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”
Jafar Panahi, “It Was Just an Accident”
Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, “Sentimental Value”
Maggie O’Farrell and Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet”
Original score
Alexandre Desplat, “Frankenstein”
Ludwig Göransson, “Sinners”
Jonny Greenwood, “One Battle After Another”
Kangding Ray, “Sirât”
Max Richter, “Hamnet”
Hans Zimmer, “F1”
Original song
“Dream as One” (“Avatar: Fire and Ash”)
Music and lyrics by Miley Cyrus, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson, Simon Franglen
“Golden” (“KPop Demon Hunters”)
Music by Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Park Hong Jun
Lyrics by Kim Eun-jae (EJAE), Mark Sonnenblick
“I Lied to You” (“Sinners”)
Music and lyrics by Raphael Saadiq, Ludwig Göransson
“No Place Like Home” (“Wicked: For Good”)
Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
“The Girl in the Bubble” (“Wicked: For Good”)
Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
“Train Dreams” (“Train Dreams”)
Music by Nick Cave, Bryce Dessner
Lyrics by Nick Cave
Television series — drama
“The Pitt”
“Severance”
“The Diplomat”
“Pluribus”
“Slow Horses”
“The White Lotus”
Television series — musical or comedy
“Abbott Elementary”
“Hacks”
“Nobody Wants This”
“The Studio”
“The Bear”
“Only Murders in the Building”
Television limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for television
“Adolescence”
“All Her Fault”
“The Beast in Me”
“Black Mirror”
“Dying for Sex”
“The Girlfriend”
Performance by a female actor in a television series — drama
Kathy Bates, “Matlock”
Britt Lower, “Severance”
Helen Mirren, “MobLand”
Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”
Keri Russell, “The Diplomat”
Rhea Seehorn, “Pluribus”
Performance by a male actor in a television series — drama
Sterling K. Brown, “Paradise”
Diego Luna, “Andor”
Gary Oldman, “Slow Horses”
Mark Ruffalo, “Task”
Adam Scott, “Severance”
Noah Wyle, “The Pitt”
Performance by a female actor in a television series — musical or comedy
Kristen Bell, “Nobody Wants This”
Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”
Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building”
Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face”
Jenna Ortega, “Wednesday”
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Performance by a male actor in a television series — musical or comedy
Adam Brody, “Nobody Wants This”
Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”
Glen Powell, “Chad Powers”
Seth Rogen, “The Studio”
Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”
Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
Performance by a female actor in a limited series, anthology series, or a motion picture made for television
Claire Danes, “The Beast in Me”
Rashida Jones, “Black Mirror”
Amanda Seyfried, “Long Bright River”
Sarah Snook, “All Her Fault”
Michelle Williams, “Dying for Sex”
Robin Wright, “The Girlfriend”
Performance by a male actor in a limited series, anthology series, or a motion picture made for television
Jacob Elordi, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”
Paul Giamatti, “Black Mirror”
Stephen Graham, “Adolescence”
Charlie Hunnam, “Monster: The Ed Gein Story”
Jude Law, “Black Rabbit”
Matthew Rhys, “The Beast in Me”
Performance by a female actor in a supporting role on television
Carrie Coon, “The White Lotus”
Erin Doherty, “Adolescence”
Hannah Einbinder, “Hacks”
Catherine O’Hara, “The Studio”
Parker Posey, “The White Lotus”
Aimee Lou Wood, “The White Lotus”
Performance by a male actor in a supporting role on television
Owen Cooper, “Adolescence”
Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”
Walton Goggins, “The White Lotus”
Jason Isaacs, “The White Lotus”
Tramell Tillman, “Severance”
Ashley Walters, “Adolescence”
Performance in stand-up comedy on television
“Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This?”
“Brett Goldstein: The Second Best Night of Your Life”
“Kevin Hart: Acting My Age”
“Sarah Silverman: PostMortem”
“Kumail Nanjiani: Night Thoughts”
“Ricky Gervais: Mortality”
Podcast
“Call Her Daddy”
“Good Hang With Amy Poehler”
“SmartLess”
“Up First”
“Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard”
“The Mel Robbins Podcast”
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Tracy Brown
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“Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz says he will not appear at the Kennedy Center after its board voted to attach President Donald Trump’s name to the venue.
(CNN) — “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz says he will not appear at the Kennedy Center after its board voted to attach President Donald Trump’s name to the venue — becoming the latest artist to push back against the president’s takeover of Washington’s most iconic performing arts center.
The Oscar and Grammy-award winning composer said in a statement, “The Kennedy Center was founded to be an apolitical home for artists of all nationalities and all ideologies. It is no longer apolitical, and appearing there has become an ideological statement. As long as that remains the case, I will not appear there.”
The center’s website had listed Schwartz as appearing in a gala with the Washington National Opera in May, and included a link to buy tickets to the performance, but it was removed from the website Friday afternoon.
In spite of the website listing the upcoming appearance by Schwartz, Richard Grenell, the president of the center’s board, denied that he had ever been signed to appear.
“He was never signed and I’ve never had a single conversation on him since arriving,” Grenell said in a post on X, calling reports of Schwartz’s cancelation “totally bogus.”
“He himself said last February he hadn’t heard anything on it,” Grenell said.
A spokesman for Schwartz said the composer and a person associated with the Washington National Opera had been in communication about his “possible participation” in a May gala, and they had last spoken in February 2025.
“Having not heard anything further after that point, he assumed—incorrectly, as it turns out—that the event was no longer moving forward,” the spokesman, Michael Cole, said in an email to CNN. Cole added that Schwartz had only learned Thursday night that the event was still scheduled.
The Kennedy Center opened in 1971, designated by Congress as a living memorial to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Schwartz attended the center’s opening.
But a stream of artists have canceled their appearances since Trump purged the center’s existing board and installed a slate of loyalists to oversee the center last year. Since then, the center has cut staff and reevaluated its programming.
More artists canceled after the new board voted last month to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
The New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers is among those who cancelled their upcoming performances. The company’s director, Doug Varone, appearing on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Friday said the decision to cancel was unanimous — despite the financial hit from lost revenue.
“Everyone in our organization from our board to our dancers to our staff all supported this decision,” he said. “I can’t imagine any artist wanting to step through those doors right now with his name on that building.”
The decision by artists to bow out of scheduled appearances prompted threats of legal action from the Kennedy Center against some of the artists.
The move to add Trump’s name to the center quickly raised legal concerns as to whether the board had the legal authority to rename the arts institution. But it’s unclear whether anybody looking to challenge the renaming would have legal standing to do so, experts previously told CNN.
The-CNN-Wire
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WTOP Staff
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Cynthia Erivo doesn’t do vision boards; instead, she makes annual lists of the things she wants to achieve. But even she couldn’t have fathomed what a whirlwind the past 12 months would be, between opening the Oscars with Ariana Grande on the heels of their Wicked press run and subsequent awards campaign, to performing at Coachella, hosting the Tony Awards, releasing a studio album and memoir, filming three new movies and hitting the press and awards circuit once more for Wicked: For Good amid rehearsals for her upcoming one-woman stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
“At some point, there are things that I could not think of to put on the list that were happening,” Erivo tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Would I have loved to perform at the Hollywood Bowl? Yes, and I did my concert there. Then I was thrown back into the Hollywood Bowl to do Jesus Christ Superstar. Did I see myself playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar? Absolutely not,” she admits of two additional feats this past year.
The abundance of offers could be labeled a Wicked windfall, as Erivo’s portrayal of a gravity-defying Elphaba in Jon M. Chu’s 2024 feature, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best actress — news she learned of while flying to Sundance to receive the Visionary Award this past January — has seemingly translated into opportunities to do the same in real life. “Something happened where it felt like people went, ‘Well, OK then, what do you want to do? What should we try? You’ve been a green woman; you’ve been a witch’— I think even Poker Face had something to do with it — ‘You’ve done 79 different characters in one place, so what else can we do or have you not done?’ ” says Erivo, whose full slate is a testament to her embrace of this moment.
“Some of us, unfortunately, get put in a box and we are defined by the thing that we’ve done once, and now we’re only going to be able to do that one thing,” she adds. “I’ve been really lucky, and I’m extremely grateful that whatever box I’m in — and hopefully I’m not in one — is very expansive and I can stretch and try new things and grow and learn and be whichever character I want to be.”
Being Erivo might be the most demanding role of all. As we talk, the actress initially misremembers what she did and when as the overlap between projects and obligations becomes a blur discussing the horseback riding lessons, combat training and dialect coaching she underwent for her part in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s novel Children of Blood and Bone, set for release January 2027.
“We were doing all of that whilst doing awards season at the same time, and literally the day I had to get to South Africa to start hair, makeup, costume, all of that was the day after the Oscars,” recalls Erivo, whose opening medley with Grande has been at least partially credited for the broadcast’s five-year ratings high. “My flight was in the morning. So, when I say the day after, I mean the night of the Oscars,” she adds. “I had to come home. My nails had to be changed that night because I had embellishments galore all over them, so we had to get it back down to zero, and then I got on a plane that morning; 5:00 a.m. I was in the car off to the airport.”
There was no easing into her new character, Admiral Kaea, when she touched down in Cape Town. “The first day of filming was [Cynthia] on a horse, and her comfort level was like she was born to ride,” says Prince-Bythewood, who sensed Erivo’s dedication to the part even prior to casting.
“The thing that’s so striking, and I got it in our very first phone call, even before she got the role, I was like, ‘This is why she’s great,’ because of the level that she wanted to talk about the character … where she wanted to go with the character and the things that she wanted to know, the things that she had already thought about, the things she wanted to bring and the excitement … she was excited about every single thing.”
Reshoots for Wicked: For Good took Erivo directly to London from South Africa in May — “which was insane, which is why I couldn’t remember it,” she confesses. From London, Erivo then went to New York to begin press for her second studio album, I Forgive You, released on June 6, just two days before she hosted the Tony Awards — which drew its largest viewership in six years — all while doing Samari training for her role in Takashi Doscher’s action thriller Karoshi which was shot in Vancouver, Canada, from June to August.
“It’s sort of kismet,” Erivo says of the album’s release time. “All I knew is that we had Wicked coming, so I figured if we have the album the same year as the movie, it made sense for me. I just didn’t count that Tonys would also be happening the same week.” So did appearances on Good Morning America, The Late Show, The Tonight Show and the Today show concert series. “And we did DC Pride,” Erivo recalls. “Oh my God. What was I doing to myself? DC Pride was the night before the Tonys.”
As hectic as her schedule is, Erivo is rigid about preserving the voice that often leaves audiences in awe, whether heard in theaters, stadiums or on sound stages. “I’m always taking care of it,” says the mezzo soprano who notes she stays in touch with her vocal coaches, Joan Lader and Antea Birchett, the latter of whom she worked with on Wicked, and does warmup exercises before every single show. “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m a crazy person. I don’t eat anything on planes. I bring everything with me: my tea, my water. Someone made a meme of the mug that I carry around because I have it with me everywhere. I have it in several different colors. I will not be without it because I want my tea to always be warm enough to hydrate me,” Erivo adds. “That’s just how I exist. I will do whatever I need to make sure she’s OK — except apparently take a break.”
That diligence with her instrument particularly paid off on I Forgive You’s “Be Okay,” which earned Erivo a Grammy nomination for best arrangement, instrumental or a capella, her fifth overall (she won best musical theater album in 2017 for The Color Purple) and first for a solo project. “I’m really proud of it because it feels like a nomination that recognizes my musicianship, not just me as a singer,” she says. “That song kind of wrote itself. I think I must’ve done it in 20 minutes, and I knew I wanted to write something a capella. I knew I wanted it to feel like a lullaby. I knew I wanted it to feel like something that would lift spirits, but I still wanted the complexity of what harmony can do in something when there’s no music underneath it.”
Erivo’s penchant for complexity also earned her an Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series for her portrayal of quintuplets known as the Kazinsky sisters in Poker Face.
“It was crazy. It was insane. It was absolutely nonsense, and I would do it again in a heartbeat,” says Cynthia of the undertaking, not realizing the Peacock show was canceled in November after two seasons.
“I’m gutted,” she says when informed. “I thought it was so innovative and fun. It gave each person, each new guest, each character, each actor, a different thing to do. I’d never been given the chance to play something like that before, to do anything of that magnitude, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It’s sad that something like that that presents the opportunity to do something different outside of yourself is going.”
“Singular,” is the word Bradley Cooper uses to describe the talent of Erivo, which he’s seen in many facets since the two became friends, including in a private rehearsal with Gustavo Dudamel at Disney Hall for the L.A. Philharmonic Homecoming concert in 2021. Erivo performed with Dudamel again at Coachella this past April.
“She’s a unicorn,” Cooper says. “The making of Wicked — [my daughter and I] watched everything — her singing on that contraption horizontal. I voted for her for best actress. I know you’re not supposed to say that, but what she was able to evoke by being horizontal against the green screen, singing live, was so insane. No one could do that.”
It could be said that both Wicked and Poker Face were good preparation for Dracula, the forthcoming Kip Williams stage production in which Erivo will play all 23 characters in one performance at the Noël Coward Theatre in London from February to May 2026.
“My head is so full of information,” says Erivo, who chatted with THR just a day before the first full week of rehearsal. “It’s not just the words, it’s just not just the characters, it’s the movement on stage with these characters, and the changes that happen on the stage with these characters. Costume changes are happening in real time in front of you; the character’s becoming another character with a beat where there is no costume change; I’m putting teeth in at the same time.
“There’s so much onstage magic that’s happening that I have to be the captain of,” she adds. “I’m learning at the same time while I’m learning the characters. We’re also doing really beautiful dramaturgical work and figuring out the arc of each character, so it’s not just, I’ll change to this character and then just say the lines. Each of them has their own journey, and it’s about being able to differentiate who is where and how do they connect and whether they converge and do they separate and are they one and the same. There’s so much going on. This is unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and my brain is definitely being stretched to its limit.”
It’s that creative pull that Erivo finds exciting. “If it feels like [an opportunity] might be something that I’m going to have to learn from — this is really scary, this is going to force me to find something else in my character, something else in who I am — then I say yes,” she says. “The problem is a lot of those things are showing up right now, so I’m not saying no very often, but I do say no.”
So far, Dracula and a new film adaptation of Othello, co-starring David Oyelowo, are the only projects on Erivo’s docket heading into 2026, which is more than enough after a fall that included filming the feature adaptation of Prima Facie, for which Erivo stars in the lead role and is also a producer, and releasing her New York Times bestselling memoir, Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much, in November.
“I managed to sneak a week off to go and do Paris Fashion Week,” Erivo says of her other plans for the new year. “I’ve always had to do one day or two days in that rush off and go do something, but this year I asked to have the full week off to go and be in Paris. That is what I want to do, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
She’ll also be initially occupied by award season, for which Wicked: For Good has drummed up significant buzz, with Erivo already making history as the first Black woman to be nominated twice in the Golden Globe category of best lead actress (comedy or musical). It’s surreal moments like that which have made Erivo slow to craft her next set of conquests. “My mind has been blown several times,” she says of the past year. “To this point, I still haven’t even dared to write the list [for 2026] because at this point, I’m sort of like, ‘What have you got?’ ”
Whatever the universe, or the entertainment industry, has in store, Cooper will be watching. “I’m so excited for her future and what she’s going to do,” he says. “In this business, sometimes you find people that inspire you, and then they’re such lovely human beings. And if they’re like-minded, I find it makes you feel this [sense of] community. This business can be very rough, so when you find somebody that’s supportive and honest about it, too, and you admire them and there’s a mutual respect, it’s a gift.”
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Brande Victorian
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The story of “The Wizard of Oz ” is 125 years old, yet still reinventing itself in all kinds of forms.
A musical twist on the tale opened at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis Tuesday night. “The Wiz” runs all week, and the “Wicked” sequel is still in movie theaters.
At Lagoon Theatre in Uptown Minneapolis, Jessica Christenson is bracing herself for a viewing of “Wicked.” It’s a story she’s been connected to for a long time.
“It takes you out of your everyday life. It gives you a little relief and a break from the day-to-day monotony of how everything is in the world,” Christenson said.
Jack Zipes, a retired University of Minnesota professor, actually wrote the introductions to the newer editions of the Wizard of Oz book by L. Frank Baum, originally published in 1900.
“I was overwhelmed by his great imagination, his commitment to utopia,” Zipes said. “I’ve been intrigued by the type of compassion he has for humanity.”
So what is it about the story of Oz that keeps pulling us back in?
“The story of Oz exposes, to a certain extent, what is lacking in America and most countries in the world: to share things instead of compete, ” Zipes said.
He also points out the unique depiction of good and evil.
“They all have weaknesses and they are very kind to one another. They share their ideas. They help one another. They are not violent. They actually help poor people wherever they go,” Zipes said. “The two nasty witches are done away with by themselves. They’re not killed. They blow themselves up. In other words, evil does itself in.”
Zipes says it’s also a story of self-discovery, as Dorothy’s friends realize their weaknesses, they show each other their strengths.
“People have to live in a compassionate way with one another, and that’s what Baum was all about,” Zipes said. “It’s the opposite of the way we live and I think it gives us hope.”
Zipes is a specialist in children’s literature. Just last week, he published “Never-ending Tales: Stories from the Golden Age of Jewish Literature.”
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Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
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Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael B. Jordan, and Ariana Grande might be chasing the same murky Oscars narrative.
Photo: Merrick Morton/Warner Bros.
Nate Jones is back from leave and will be officially taking back the reins of Gold Rush on December 5. This week, he and Movies Fantasy League commissioner Joe Reid are splitting duties — Joe is capping off his three-month stint as this newsletter’s host by leading a conversation about this year’s moment-having Oscar contenders, and Nate is launching his season’s “Oscar Futures.”
If you’ve been around the Oscars conversation long enough, a few oft-repeated phrases and clichés get lodged into your brain. You become an expert in concepts like “category fraud” and “lone director” and how many nominations Diane Warren has accumulated (16). One superlative Oscars nerds especially like to play around with is “It’s their time” or “It’s their year.” Christopher Nolan winning for Oppenheimer? It was his time. Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis winning for Everything Everywhere All at Once? Finally, it was their time! The phrase sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy, or at least so vibes-based that you can’t really assign meaning to it. But we would argue that you can. And in fact, it applies to several people currently in the mix for this year’s Oscars.
Joe Reid: Nate, I’d begin by saying that “It’s their year” isn’t something that can apply to just anyone in the Oscar race. Renate Reinsve is very much in the Best Actress Oscar race for Sentimental Value, but I’m not sure anyone can make the argument that this feels like her time. Sean Penn is on most people’s short lists of Supporting Actor contenders for One Battle After Another, but I wouldn’t say this is his year. “It’s their time” is more encompassing. It’s when everything seems to be coming together for an actor or filmmaker: They’re in a widely appreciated movie showcasing good work, popular opinion on them is cresting, and an Oscar win would feel both presently earned and reflective of where they are in their career. Would you say that’s about right?
Nate Jones: Hi, Joe! First off, thanks for handling Gold Rush while I dealt with some roommate drama. (This new person is emotionally volatile, keeps a very odd diet, and hasn’t yet paid for her share of the rent or utilities.) When it comes to the sense of it being someone’s time, you’ve pinpointed a fascinating phenomenon. I’d add that “It’s their year” is actually two separate but related narratives. The first type is the one we saw for Will Smith with King Richard, Viola Davis with Fences, and Leonardo DiCaprio with The Revenant — an esteemed industry figure who hasn’t yet gotten their due from the Academy receives an entire career’s worth of hosannas all at once. (What separates this from a “career win” like Curtis’s is the sense that this project is genuinely considered one of the artistic high points on their résumé.) The second type is the one we saw for Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook — a performance that’s so undeniable that it doesn’t really matter what you’ve done before. You’ve made a leap, and everyone else just has to get out of your way.
This season brings one standout example of an “It’s their time” campaign. Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most acclaimed and influential directors of his generation. He has been nominated for 11 Oscars over the course of his career and lost them all. Now here he comes with One Battle After Another, a film that has not only earned critical raves and the best box office of his career, but seems almost preternaturally plugged into the Zeitgeist of the second Trump era. No other film in the race feels as “2025” as One Battle, which of course only bolsters the argument for this being PTA’s year. By most pundits’ estimations, Best Picture and Best Director are both his to lose.
Apart from PTA, though, are there any other “It’s their year” picks you have your eye on, Joe?
J.R.: I’ll stick with the Best Director category, because you’re right that PTA makes for the best “It’s his time”/“It’s his year” case. But why couldn’t it also be Ryan Coogler’s year? Sinners is a bigger box-office hit than One Battle After Another, and Coogler’s career has been far more broadly consumed than Anderson’s has. With the Black Panther and Creed films backing him up, this feels like the exact right time for Hollywood to hold him up as their standard-bearer. Though I wonder if, because Coogler has never been nominated in Best Director before, a nomination in that category might be seen as sufficient recognition of his year.
Then there’s Josh Safdie, another director looking for his first-ever Oscar nomination. Marty Supreme hasn’t opened yet, but the buzz on the movie has it surpassing brother Benny’s The Smashing Machine. And while the brothers are insistent that there isn’t a competition between them, if there is, Josh is winning. And who doesn’t want to get onboard with a winner? That’s one of the messages of his movie!
I think the best argument against it being Josh Safdie’s year is that it’s actually his lead actor’s year. More than any other actor in contention this year, Timothée Chalamet has the potential to own the year’s best “It’s his time” narrative. At age 29 (he turns 30 in a month), he’s rounding up on his third Best Actor nomination, and if Marty Supreme gets into the Best Picture field it will be his eighth such movie to do so. His performance in Marty Supreme is a feat of chutzpah and kinetic energy that lends itself to terms like “undeniable.” And if the movie is a box-office hit, it’ll be his third December success in as many years (after A Complete Unknown and Wonka). Is there any argument against him being the leading man of the moment?
N.J.: The only counterargument to this being Timmy’s time is the fact that, traditionally, the Academy lags a few years behind the wider culture when it comes to acknowledging young leading men of the moment. Chalamet has had the best come-up of any young actor since DiCaprio, but recall that Leo didn’t win until his sixth acting nomination, when he was in his 40s. It might feel like Timmy’s year to us, but voters may still feel as if he hasn’t quite paid his dues. Especially as it seems like Chalamet is once again running a nontraditional campaign more focused on Gen-Z cinephiles than middle-age Academy members.
Which is why, weirdly, I think the Original Recipe Timmy might have just as good a case for an “It’s his year” in Best Actor. DiCaprio spent the first 20 years of his career being snubbed by Oscar voters, and his trophy cabinet’s looking pretty threadbare compared to his reputation. Shouldn’t he have more than one Oscar, the argument might go, and if so, isn’t now the time to give him his second? You may say Leo was overshadowed by his castmates; I say, “How many Bob Ferguson costumes did you see at Halloween this year?” He created an instantly iconic character in what’s shaping up to be the biggest awards movie of the season — there’s a narrative to be had here if DiCaprio, never the most dedicated campaigner, wants to grab it.
And what of the other major contender in Best Actor, Michael B. Jordan, who can claim as much credit as Coogler for making Sinners a sensation? He’s a huge star who’s never been honored by the Academy before, and there’s two of him. Couldn’t that make it “his year”? He’s halfway between Timmy and Leo — a veteran who’s also of the moment — though does that mean he’s the best of both worlds, or stuck in no-man’s-land?
J.R.: On the subject of Leo, I want to answer two of your questions in the reverse order of which you posed them: “How many Bob Ferguson costumes did you see at Halloween this year?” Well, lots, because the Bob Ferguson costume is a bathrobe, a knit hat, some blue blockers, and a dingy T-shirt and slacks. This is like how my best idea for a group Halloween costume was to get a bunch of friends together, dress normal, and go as the newsroom from Spotlight. As for “Shouldn’t Leo have two Oscars by now?”, this is my favorite kind of Oscar argument. If Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand have three, shouldn’t Leo have two? I think the answer is yes. And the above two examples — plus more recent second wins by Adrien Brody, Emma Stone, Anthony Hopkins, and Renée Zellweger — are proof that the Academy is less reluctant to bestow second or third Oscars than they used to be.
I like your Michael B. Jordan argument, and I’m intrigued by the possibility that he could take advantage of an even split between Timmy and Leo supporters and ride to victory. I’d feel more optimistic if Sinners were more The Michael B. Jordan Show, but he doesn’t dominate the way that, say, Ariana Grande does in Wicked: For Good. That sequel hasn’t been enjoying as pink and sparkly a reception among critics as the first one did, but most reviews point to Grande’s Glinda as the film’s highlight. And after two years’ worth of viral press appearances and the near-universal agreement that she’s even more talented than we may have thought, it feels like it’s been her time for a minute now. Certainly there will be quibbles about whether a second nomination in two years is overkill, or whether For Good is just plain not good enough of a movie to produce an Oscar winner. But you can already feel the exception being carved out for Grande. And with the rest of the Supporting Actress field crammed with pairs of actresses from the same movie cannibalizing each other’s votes (Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmi Mosaku from Sinners; Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas from Sentimental Value; Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall from One Battle After Another), it’s a lot less complicated to just surrender to the girl in the bubble.
Speaking of surrender, does the fact that the Oscar-observant community is forming a consensus around Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley as Best Actress make this her moment by default? Or should we be talking about how this year feels like the result of several years of steadily breaking through?
N.J.: I think it can be both! Jessie Buckley in Hamnet feels to me like the closest thing we’ve seen recently to a J.Law moment. She’s not exactly an unknown — like Lawrence at the time of Silver Linings Playbook, she’s already a previous nominee — but her performance in Chloé Zhao’s film marks her transformation over a few short years from admired indie actress to everyone’s favorite new star. At the same time, her situation illustrates how much context matters when we declare it someone’s “year.” Ahead of the season, insiders were already whispering that this was a weak Best Actress field, so once Buckley wowed the crowds at Telluride, it was easier for pundits to simply call it early and move on to more interesting races. And without casting any aspersions on her performance, she’s also benefitting from the way the category has shaken out. The same way Brad Pitt’s path to an Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was made easier once he was nominated against four previous winners, Buckley is going up against performances that are superficially similar — traumatized moms like Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Jennifer Lawrence in Die, My Love, plus another grief-stricken Olde Englander in The Testament of Ann Lee’s Amanda Seyfried — from films that are way less audience-friendly than Hamnet.
But talking about an actor who’s seen everything align for her this year also brings to mind a few awards hopefuls who haven’t been so lucky. There are two guys who, if you’d have asked me in August, I would have said were looking forward to it being “their year”: Jesse Plemons in Bugonia and Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly. Plemons seemed like he was on track to be the male Jessie Buckley, an actor who was highly regarded within the industry, previously nominated for a supporting performance, getting a plumb role in a two-hander acting showcase. Was he finally making the leap? Sandler, meanwhile, had preheated his Supporting Actor campaign with a charming appearance at March’s Oscar ceremony and was reuniting with Noah Baumbach, who directed one of his career-best performances in The Meyerowitz Stories. The stage was set for a “We never appreciated him enough” campaign, which is of course a subvariation of “It’s his year.” Bugonia and Jay Kelly both premiered in Venice, and while each received some positive reviews, neither was met with effusive acclaim. Plemons and Sandler could still both get nominated, but any sense that it is “their time” has dissipated.
Sandler’s Supporting Actor bid in particular had the bad luck to go up against two different types of “It’s his year” campaigns: Stellan Skarsgård in Sentimental Value and Benicio del Toro in One Battle After Another. Joe, who ya got?
J.R.: Stellan Skarsgård is an interesting case for an “It’s his time” Oscar. We’ve seen character actors pull off that narrative before — I’m thinking specifically of J.K. Simmons in Whiplash. In that case, Simmons played such a forceful, dynamic character that it was hard to deny his impact. Skarsgård feels a bit more like an Alan Arkin type: endearing older actor making his mark within an ensemble in a Best Picture nominee. That being said, I don’t think Alan Arkin ever laid claim to an “It’s his time” narrative when he won for Little Miss Sunshine, so maybe that tells me everything about Skarsgård’s chances to do the same. Maybe his first-ever Oscar nomination will be enough.
Benicio del Toro, on the other hand … It might be his year. Despite being surrounded by actors giving bigger, more bombastic performances in One Battle After Another, the word of mouth was immediately strong for del Toro’s disarmingly quiet, funny, “a few small beers”–enjoying performance. The more you think about One Battle, it’s del Toro’s sensei, Sergio, who carries off the film’s themes of resistance on a community level. His Oscar win for Traffic came 25 years ago, and he’s certainly attained the level of respect in the industry to warrant a second, especially if One Battle ends up as the Best Picture winner. Getting two actors from the same movie to win second Oscars would be an exceedingly rare feat, so maybe we’re talking either-or for Leo or Benicio.
What’s fun about the Oscar race is that the “It’s their year” picture becomes clearer as the season rolls on. In the next few weeks, the critics will have their say, with the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Board of Review announcing their winners. Theirs won’t be the final word on the subject — it can be your year even if the critics don’t agree — but I think they can push a few narratives forward. Anyone you’re keeping an eye on for critics awards?
N.J.: You mentioned that Grande has become the Supporting Actress front-runner almost by default. But what if I told you there was another well-respected veteran, a previous nominee in fact, hiding in plain sight and ready to stake a claim that, actually, it’s her time? I’m talking about Amy Madigan of Weapons, who feels primed for a left-field critics-group win that vaults her into Oscar contention. Madigan feels so perfect a New York Film Critics Circle pick that, in the event the NYFCC goes elsewhere, the only reason would be a fear of being obvious.
Every week between now and January 22, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscar race. In our “Oscar Futures” column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
Photo: Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features
The TIFF People’s Choice Award winner hit theaters this week under the cloud of becoming, if not yet the season’s official Oscar villain, then at least the official Oscar punchline. None of that looks likely to dent Hamnet’s awards fortunes at the moment: The Tudor tearjerker has plenty of fans among industry types I talk to, and even viewers allergic to its woo-woo nonsense (ahem) may ultimately find themselves a little misty by the end. If Chloé Zhao’s film winds up one of the year’s major Oscar players — it should, since it’s being put out by Focus, and not Tubi — that’ll be worth suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous Twitter jokes.
Photo: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
A $147 million opening — 30 percent higher than its predecessor — is just what the musical needed to maintain its Best Picture bona fides, especially since so many other awards hopefuls crashed and burned at the fall box office. But those boffo receipts came alongside mixed reviews, which all but kills For Good’s already-slim chances of pulling a Return of the King–style win for the series as a whole. The sequel’s best chance at an above-the-line trophy will come in another category.
Frankenstein, Hamnet, Is This Thing On?, It Was Just an Accident, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams
Photo: Tim P. Whitby/Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images
Skim the generally positive Hamnet reviews, like Justin Chang’s, and note critics’ side-eyes regarding Zhao’s “forceful, sometimes pushy emotionalism.” Says Chang: “The movie whispers poetic sublimities in your ear one minute and tosses its prestige ambitions in your face the next.” (He also quips, “What is Hamnet, or Hamlet, without a little ham?” Get thee to a punnery!) The lady doth impress too much? Maybe so, but if there’s one thing you can say about a director who leads breathing exercises before screenings, she is certainly to her own self being true.
Photo: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
Chu has cemented his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most reliable IP guys, which is not exactly an honor the directors’ branch holds in high regard. If a nom didn’t happen last year, it’s not gonna happen this year.
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another; Ryan Coogler, Sinners; Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value; Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Photo: Neon/Everett Collection
With the Rock and Jeremy Allen White dropping down the ranks, could there be space for an international contender like Moura, who won Best Actor at Cannes for his turn in this Brazilian political thriller? Neon certainly thinks so, bringing Moura out to schmooze with critics groups last week. It helps that the actor, who lives in L.A., is a familiar face from Narcos — he even has his own meme — and that reviews have been strong in limited release. (Melissa Anderson calls him “so spellbinding that he constitutes his own magnetic field.”) Neon is juggling a lot of foreign-language entries, but Moura is its No. 1 priority in this race.
For the first two hours or so of Marty Supreme, I was skeptical of all the headlines proclaiming this Timmy’s year. A charismatic, live-wire performance? Sure. But wasn’t this reptilian oddball simply too unsympathetic a part to catapult young Chalamet to Oscar glory? I won’t spoil what happened next, but let’s just say that, by the movie’s final shot, I no longer had those concerns.
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme; Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another; Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon; Michael B. Jordan, Sinners; Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Photo: Agata Grzybowska/FOCUS FEATURES
“The usual adjectives barely seem adequate when discussing Buckley’s extraordinary performance,” says Keith Phipps, who echoes his fellow critics in declaring this Buckley’s film: “Shakespeare’s wife may remain forever a mystery, but Hamnet makes Agnes a creation of yearning, aching humanity who’s impossible to forget.” We’ll see how the sense of inevitability holds up over the course of the season, but for now, even rival campaigns are operating under the assumption that this is Buckley’s year.
Erivo has been pencilled in for a follow-up nod for the past 12 months, but I’m joining Joe in holding space for the possibility that she could miss out. Her character takes a backseat in the sequel, and while Part One ended with Erivo’s thunderous “Defying Gravity,” For Good’s titular number turns into a showcase for Ariana Grande. At least she’ll always have the sex cardigan.
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet; Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You; Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good; Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value; Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features, James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures
Alas, poor Mescal! I knew him, Vulture reader; a fellow that Dana Stevens thinks was miscast. (She feels his character’s “rough edges are largely sanded off” by the actor’s “heart-on-his-sleeve expressiveness.”) Still, Alyssa Wilkinson declares he “knocked me flat.” Hamnet is strong enough — and the role emotive enough — that Mescal and Buckley will probably be considered a package deal. Recall, though, that Joseph Fiennes was not nominated for Shakespeare in Love. Will Shakespeare in Grief fare better?
Photo: Netflix
Who did Stevens wish would have played Shakespeare instead? None other than Mescal’s History of Sound co-star, who also pops up this week for the Knives Out threequel’s limited run in theaters. Despite sending increasingly frantic emails to Netflix, I’m still waiting to see it, but critics like John Nugent say his turn as a priest “brilliantly” walks a “tonal tightrope between unprocessed inner darkness, youthful befuddlement and gentle decency.” It didn’t happen for Ana de Armas, and it didn’t happen for Janelle Monáe, so anyone predicting O’Connor must do so on faith.
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another; Delroy Lindo, Sinners; Paul Mescal, Hamnet; Sean Penn, One Battle After Another; Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Photo: YouTube
Is she gonna be pop-uUu-lar? (Sorry, wrong installment.) As Joe mentioned above, this category is so unsettled, and so rife with internal competition, that Grande feels like the front-runner almost by default. Think of it this way: By rewarding her, it’s almost like they’d be awarding two press tours for the price of one.
Photo: A24
Credit to Josh Safdie and casting director Jennifer Venditti for filling this ’50s period piece with the most never-seen-a-cell-phone faces put onscreen this year. The only exception is Gwyneth, who never quite un-Goop-ifies herself as an aging silver-screen star. It works for the character, though.
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value; Amy Madigan, Weapons; Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners; Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good; Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
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Joe Reid
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Title: Wicked: For Good
Describe This Movie In One Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Quote:
RAOUL DUKE: And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Brief Plot Synopsis: We’re off to … off the Wizard.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Dark Side of the Moon albums out of 5.
Tagline: “You will be changed.”
Better Tagline: “This could’ve been a musical email.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: After breaking with the Wizard (Jeff Golblum) and power behind the throne Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has become Oz’s Most Wanted. This puts her friend Glinda (Ariana Grande) in a difficult position, balancing her position as face of the regime — and impending wedding to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) — while running interference for Elphaba as the “Wicked Witch” plots to stop the Wizard.
“Critical” Analysis: I wasn’t a fan of last year’s Wicked. The washed out palette, the forced theater kid enthusiasm, the fact that director John M. Chu snuck that “Part I” in at the very beginning, thereby assuring Universal could milk this tornado cow for another entire movie didn’t sit well. So to say my hopes weren’t high for its sequel is putting it mildly.
So Technicolor me surprised that Wicked: For Good, while far from a perfect movie, is actually superior to the original (if mostly unnecessary). Chalk that up to the added emotional heft, bravura performances from Erivo and Grande, and — hear me out — a reduced emphasis on big-ass Broadway style production numbers.
That same fidelity to the original musical that created such a devoted following also constrained Wicked’s potential. Chu was beholden to the big to-do of songs like an expanded “Dancing Though Life,” attempting to recapture that Broadway feeling. It also led to a real fear that a follow-up to a frontloaded Wicked wouldn’t be able to sustain that energy.
And while that’s pretty accurate, it turns out the lack of showstoppers like “Defying Gravity” helps make Wicked: For Good more of a “real movie.” And as aggravating as it can be to hear characters drop into sung dialogue (I love you, Michelle Yeoh; but please never do that again), there’s at least some effort put into pushing the action without the constant heartfelt YEARNING of the original.
Don’t get me wrong, because there’s plenty not to like here. Certain characters (Marissa Bode’s Nessarose, for one) deliberate inability or unwillingness to acknowledge their shittiness, or apex predators like Dulcibear’s (Sharon D. Clarke) failure to realize they could easily disembowel the fucking Wizard. For that matter, it would seem an easy task for Elphaba to dispatch a guy who’s only claim to fame is a penchant for sleight of hand (and he sings a whole song about it, of course)
And while we’re on the subject, Jeff Goldblum morphed into playing himself (a la Samuel L. Jackson) so gradually I hardly noticed.
The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-ing of the events of The Wizard of Oz is big part of Wicked and For Good’s appeal, but it’s laid on a bit thick here, expanding on the original Dorothy silhouetting to include actual shots of the character and her entourage (courtesy of Elphaba’s well-intentioned but off-target magic). I’m not sure if Chu thought audiences were too dumb to put two and two together or Universal demanded it, but it’s unnecessary.
Regarding that theory, the studio interference angle makes the most sense, because — again — there is no reason to expand Wicked into two movies outside of a naked cash grab*. Wicked: For Good plods along until the second act, when the action picks up, but it would have worked as well, if not better, as the climax to the first movie.
But Chu manages some interesting non-stagey shots, juxtaposing Glinda’s walk down the aisle with Elphaba discovery of the animals caged by the Wizard (expanding on her finding Doctor Dillamond), and the parting shot of witches separated by a door (that apparently almost didn’t happen). Wicked: For Good finally gets it into gear after Elphaba and Fiyero get it on and the former embraces her devilish, no … villainous nature? It’ll come to me.
I liked Wicked: For Good. Is it too long? Sure. Is it still painfully washed out? Yes. Does it stretch out subplots better left abandoned? Also yes. But the chemistry between Grande and Erivo feels more authentic, and the so-called “weaker” numbers pack more of a punch, probably because there are fewer of them. And who doesn’t love a villain origin story?
Ask A 16-Year Old:
RFTED: Are we leaving?
16YO: Why would you want to watch the credits?
RFTED: Maybe there’ll be a stinger for the next Avengers movie.
16YO: We’re going.
*And it worked. The movie grossed $147 million its opening weekend.
Wicked: For Good is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
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Pete Vonder Haar
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Both Wicked and its new sequel, For Good, are littered with “Oz-isms”—the occasional word tweak here and there to make the Land of Oz feel just askance of our own reality, like “obsessulated,” “rejoicify,” or “braverism,” and so on. But there’s one that For Good goes back to over and over, to the point of weirdness: everyone tells each other that they’ll do something in “a clock tick.”
For Good already has a peculiar relationship with time, given that the movie itself (and even the creative team throughout its press tour) is hazy about just how much time has really passed between the events of the films—Madame Morrible notes in the opening that it’s been “12 tide turns” since Elphaba stole the Grimmerie, but we’re never given an indication of just what frame of time a tide turn is—or how the passage of time in the film itself is meant to be interwoven with the events of Wizard of Oz in the background (as with the musical, it’s best to just not think about that at all).
But it’s a “clock tick” that comes up over and over in For Good. Characters are frequently telling each other to wait a clock tick, or they’ll be back in a clock tick, or they only have a clock tick. It’s particularly odd, given that Oz also has “just a sec” as a turn of phrase—Glinda says exactly that when she has to pop her bubble to hear the Munchkins talking to her in Wicked‘s opening, so a clock tick must be the equivalent of a minute or two, but it’s not necessarily the construction that’s the issue; it’s that it’s used multiple times in For Good, including in adapting the one time it’s used in the stage show during Elphaba and Glinda’s catfight.
The rest of Wicked‘s Oz-isms become background noise, which is in part why they’re so effective—they don’t stand out as particularly jarring to our ears, in the way the repeated use of “clock tick” does. But there’s also another reason… because neither the musical nor its movie adaptation really uses a pretty major element from Gregory Maguire’s original novel, the Clock of the Time Dragon.
In Maguire’s version of Wicked (which is wildly different from the events of the musical in many ways), the clock is a crucial piece of Ozian culture, taking on a spiritual significance. A traveling mechanical puppet theater, the clock is a large tower-like object that travels across the various regions of Oz, putting on shows that people begin to believe are actually capable of prophetic visions. Elphaba has a particularly important connection to the show, as in the book she is actually born in the clock; one of its shows attempts to reveal the nature of her true parentage to her, and several characters’ ill demises in Wicked and its sequel novels are predicted by the Time Dragon, which even eventually becomes a place of safekeeping for the Grimmerie.
But the clock is never really brought up in the musical or the movie adaptations as much. The musical is at least a bit more involved with it, as the production is staged with the Time Dragon hanging over the stage, with its clock face forming a key background piece throughout, but it’s set dressing as a nod to its importance in the original book, rather than a significant plot point. The movies, meanwhile, are even more distanced: Glinda mentions the clock in Wicked‘s opening when she describes the time Elphaba’s melting occurred, and Shiz University has an elaborate clock that features a dragon motif in its design as a nod, but that’s about it.
The fact that the Clock of the Time Dragon is so unimportant to either Wicked the musical or Wicked the movie adaptations honestly makes the repeated usage of “clock tick” in For Good all the stranger—intentional nod or otherwise.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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James Whitbrook
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The highly anticipated conclusion to Universal Pictures’ adaptation of Wicked has finally hit theaters, tying together the story we thought we knew about Dorothy’s arrival in Oz. However, we don’t get to see much of the teen girl from Kansas after her house lands on top of the Wicked Witch of the East and she is sent off to see the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) with shoes that don’t belong to her, thanks to Glinda (Ariana Grande) being petty.
Wicked: For Good shines enough on the incredible music and the powerful relationship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda to distract from how it very minimally grazes over the beats of L. Frank Baum’s literary classic and MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. Yet, by the end there were so many choices made that left more questions than answers.
We’d hoped for an inspired take by visionary director Jon M. Chu, whose first Wicked installment set up a whole new version of Oz audiences around the world have fallen in love with. While the stage musical focuses on its good and bad witches, its cinematic release centered Nessarose (Marissa Bode), Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), and Boq (Ethan Slater) as part of the ensemble. Along with them, so many setups were left unfulfilled in ways that made us want to take a trip down the yellow brick road for a conversation with the Wizard.
Here are the searing questions that still haunt and hurt us after watching Wicked: For Good.
There’s not much explanation as to whether Elphaba’s efforts to free the animals have, at least over the years, garnered her any support in between the events of Wicked and Wicked: For Good. Oz hates her for presumably stealing the Grimmerie and helping the animals escape. But she’s also hated by the animals for helping—namely, the winged monkeys and the Cowardly Lion. Meanwhile, Glinda and Fiyero go along with finding her through the Wizard and Morrible’s narrative that she needs to be apprehended but don’t publicly stand up for their friend.
In the stage musical, it makes sense for the Dorothy of it all to be done in shadowplay, considering it’s not a two-part story. The Broadway audience goes in knowing this is an alternate take on the events of The Wizard of Oz and doesn’t really need to be filled in. Wicked: Part One, however, builds out more of the relationships, including Elphaba’s sisterhood with Nessarose and the meaning of their mother’s shoes.
For some viewers, Wicked was their first introduction to the world of Oz, and the expansion of the story would seem to lend itself to a retelling of Dorothy’s role as a way in to all of the drama between the three witches. That, and there are a lot of Dorothy dolls and figures in playsets that made it feel like we’d get a bit more in Wicked: For Good about how a teen from Kansas is accidentally used as a pawn to kill Nessarose and then enlisted to melt Elphaba.
It’s really a disservice to a character who could have used a a reimagining through Chu’s creative lens to get a new generation of teens to relate to her. I mean, teens being used as political pawns? Evergreen. We get that she’s not a main character here, but she could have been used to solidify Elphie and Glinda’s love for one another, and not as a box to check.
Yes, Fiyero gets turned into the Scarecrow, who joins Dorothy on the yellow brick road with the lion cub he saved, who seems to have no recollection of him but blames Elphaba for his cowardly nature, and his college friend, who has always been obsessed with his girlfriend and now has a literal ax to grind. In Wicked: For Good, Boq tries to escape the misery of being stuck with Nessa to stop Glinda from marrying Fiyero right before the Thropp sisters make him into a monster, and his motivation is still to get to Glinda even after that. He stares really hard at her from a crowd while spouting off his grievances against Elphaba for saving his life. Meanwhile, Glinda probably still doesn’t recognize Tin-Biq or her role in his male loneliness epidemic victimization. Yet, somehow, we’re supposed to believe he meets this teen girl and suddenly wants the Wizard to give him a heart? And doesn’t Fiyero’s guard suit match the Scarecrow’s outfit? Or does Fiyero say he also hates Elphaba for turning him?
The poppy field that the Wicked Witch of the West enchants to lull Dorothy and the Lion to sleep (set up at Shiz!) could have helped fill in this blank. There was no exchange between them—other than maybe giving us a moment of Fiyero seemingly turning against her because he’s “dumb” now to fool the audience and Boq—but that we could have later seen as the instant where they quickly hatched a plan before Boq came into the picture.
This one haunts me the most because even when he had a heart, he was down bad for her, and then he gets one from the Wizard. So wouldn’t he just go back to being a stalker creep, but now looking more horrifying? Glinda, you in danger, girl. But in all seriousness: Boq not getting a resolution after getting established as a core ensemble member doesn’t work.
After he leaves Oz upon realizing he just had his daughter killed, he basically takes his balloon back sans Dorothy as per the book. Everyone in the Emerald City is happy to see him go, but why? It’s not because they really hated him; he used them against the animals to create conflict to bolster himself, but to what end? Thanks for doing nothing, I guess.
Morrible puppeteering the Wizard to further her cause against the animals never made sense. It might have had she gotten a backstory as to her hate of animals, maybe being related to Doctor Dillamond for being smarter than her, and knowledge being more respected than power. That kind of framework would have explained her truly wicked need to take it out on animal kind. Also, her punishment? Too tame. She enslaved animals and killed the mayor of Munchkinland. Those monkeys had better have flown her straight to Elphie for real revenge.
Besides the obvious symbolism, it’s never explained if the cages make the animals normal human-world creatures or if Morrible magicked away their voices. We see Dillamond return to Shiz at the end to teach, but there are no words or any sort of redemption of Elphaba in his class, at least!
Elphaba gets a whole song about how “there’s no place like home,” a mantra that gets Dorothy home with the tapping of the magic witch shoes, most famously seen in The Wizard of Oz, but that is weirdly set up here with no payoff. There could have been a reprise at Nessarose’s feet, where Elphaba sees that home could never appreciate her, which would a) explain why she chooses to leave Oz with Fiyero, and b) could have been overheard by Glinda to help her come to terms with her role as the Good Witch for the people. It would have been fitting for her to use those words as the spell to affirm herself as a new leader while using it to magic the Thropp slippers to get Dorothy back to Kansas.
In Wicked: For Good, Elphaba’s motivation is to stay in Oz to defend it despite it pushing her out, then it’s getting her mother’s shoes back, but after her heart-to-heart with Glinda, it all is just supposed to change. It’s so odd to see her relinquish her fight to encourage her friend to use her pretty privilege for good and find the magic within herself to do what she couldn’t because she’s green. But it’s okay because she’s got her straw prince and walks off to a distant land, which may or may not be the human world. Doesn’t matter.
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Sabina Graves
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Wicked: For Good is out now, and on social media, the actress portraying Dorothy in the new musical sequel shared some behind-the-scenes looks at the set, as well as more of herself as the iconic Wizard of Oz character.
Actress Bethany Weaver portrays Dorothy Gale in the new movie, and recently took to social media to share a number of different photographs of her on set of the movie. While Wicked: For Good chooses to never show Dorothy’s face in the movie, Weaver still made sure to share some photos of her in costume enjoying her time on set.
Check out the photos and video of her while filming below:
Jon M. Chu directs the sequel from a screenplay written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox. The sequel saw the returns of Ariana Grande as Galinda “Glinda” Upland, Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar, Ethan Slater as Boq Woodsman, Marissa Bode as Nessarose Thropp, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, and Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In a previous interview, Bailey teased that the “world gets heavier and more complicated” in the sequel, while also expressing his excitement for fans to see the tonal shift in the story.
Wicked: For Good is available now in theaters. The film was a massive success upon its premiere, opening to a $226 million global debut, and setting multiple records for a Broadway musical adaptation and its film release.
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Anthony Nash
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My obsession with musical theater switched off one day before I was able to join the Wicked fanbase. The music from Les Mis, Hedwig, Spring Awakening, Rent, Once, Rocky Horror, Phantom, and a few more still spin round in my head some weeks, but shows like Cats, Rock of Ages, and Frozen felt lukewarm and facile to me. Like cat claws on a chalkboard.
So, when I went to the first part of the Wicked duology, it was as someone with zero expectations or familiarity with the musical or the book on which it was loosely based.
While I found the first one to be an interesting deconstructionist take on The Wizard of Oz and with a couple of absolute bangers on the soundtrack (“Defying Gravity” and “Popular” were instantly iconic), Wicked suffered from being a 160-minute film that only adapted the first act of the musical. By the time the plot really gains momentum and puts the characters in some high-stakes and propulsive situations, the movie ends and hopes you’ll shell out another $20 in a year to catch the rest of the story.
Wicked: For Good picks up fairly quickly after the last one ended with Elphaba (a luminous Cynthia Erivo) now firmly taking on the mantle of the Wicked Witch of the West after the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum doing his best Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (a wasted Michelle Yeoh) have used propaganda to manipulate the entirety of Oz into wanting Elphaba dead and being racist toward the talking animals and munchkins. Meanwhile, Galinda (a perfectly cast Ariana Grande) and Prince Fiyero (an also-wasted Jonathan Bailey) play their roles as good little fascists changing the evil government from within.
That’s a solid place to begin, but there are several fundamental issues that keep the film from working as a stand-alone film, a sequel, or as an allegory for resistance against a fascist state that it so desperately aspires to be. First, because almost all of the character development is in the first film, not many of the dramatic moments in For Good land with resonance. The film might play nicely as a five-hour double feature with the first one, but on its own, the love triangle is flaccid, the character beats are rushed, and none of the songs are very memorable.
Green-painted girls and tutu-wearing teens granted Wicked (2024) a wish that had nothing to do with its rumored massive marketing budget: an organic TikTok trend in which fans recorded themselves saying, “This is me before seeing Wicked,”…
Sure, songs like “No Place Like Home” and “For Good” are solid crowd-pleasers, but when you have a first half that ends with a literal curtain dropper like “Defying Gravity,” it’s hard not to feel like it’s completely front loaded as a piece of musical theater. This was a common complaint about the show on Broadway as well, so avoiding that level of anticlimax in the sequel was probably always going to be a losing battle for director Jon M. Chu.
Where Wicked: For Good is foundationally broken is in its storytelling and what it aims to achieve as a companion piece to The Wizard of Oz. What I don’t understand is the film’s intention. Do the Wicked films want to revere the 1939 original, or do they want to demystify the classic and add a dark texture to the magical land of Oz?
MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW: The opening scene of Wicked: For Good portrays all of the intelligent and verbal animals of Oz being brutally forced to build the yellow brick road. Eventually, the munchkins lose their right to travel across the borders of Oz. The Tin Man is portrayed as violent and driven by vengeance. The Cowardly Lion is pathetic and delusional. It’s almost like the creative team behind For Good wants future viewings of The Wizard of Oz to be tinged with an ugliness that, quite literally, will dilute the timeless magic inherent in the classic.
I respect the subversive spirit that it takes to try and dismantle the untouchability of the original, but neither Wicked nor its sequel pulls it off. Instead, we’re left with something like baby’s first animal farm that wants to have its surface-level anti-fascist commentary and eat it, too. Make The Wizard of Oz as “edgy” as you want to, but don’t serve it to me as a glossy musical with forgettable songs and a grab bag of mixed metaphors.
Still, I’m sure it will make half a billion dollars and the audience who were genuinely swept away by the first part will find more to fall in love with here. Erivo is a force of nature and the movie is always interesting to look at with gorgeously realized sets and design. But regardless, it’s a shallow waste of nearly bottomless cinematic resources. I hate to say it, but I’ve peeked behind the curtain and the wizard wears no clothes, stuck in a lead hot air balloon, still quite subject to gravity.
Grade: D+
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Jared Rasic, Last Word Features
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(Associated Press) – Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good” has taken the box office by storm, earning an estimated $150 million in North America and $226 million globally in its opening weekend.
It’s the biggest opening ever for a Broadway musical adaptation, surpassing the first film’s $112 million launch, and the second biggest of the year.
Released earlier this week, the film played in 4,115 North American locations by Friday, with IMAX showings contributing $15.5 million.
Women made up 71% of ticket buyers. Directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Cynthia Ervio and Ariana Grande, the film’s success is crucial for the exhibition industry as the year ends.
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Grant McHill
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Hide your surprise, Wicked: For Good took the top box-office spot this weekend as audiences flew to see it.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie musical made $226 million worldwide, with $150 million of that coming from North America. That domestic start is the biggest ever for a Broadway musical adaptation and the third-biggest musical ever behind Disney’s Lion King and Beauty & the Beast remakes. Its $76 million international take similarly broke records for a Broadway adaptation, and it’s globally the fourth-biggest opening weekend of 2025 behind Jurassic World Rebirth, Minecraft, and Lilo & Stitch.
Marketing for Wicked: For Good has been a bit different from its predecessor last year, but Universal’s made sure everyone knew the second half of the Wizard of Oz prequel was coming out. (The first Wicked premiered on NBC days before For Good hit theaters, and the two were put together in one-day double feature screenings.) Despite more mixed reviews, audiences seem to really like it. The studio may be open to doing more in this world, but Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are treating the film like it’s their last time in these roles, which has probably helped get butts in seats as they and the rest of the cast belt out songs from the musical.
The first Wicked had a good theatrical life thanks to a sing-along version released over the holidays. For Good’s probably getting the same treatment, but even if it doesn’t, it’s definitely going to dominate the rest of the year.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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Justin Carter
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Universal Pictures’ two-part “Wicked” gamble continues to defy gravity at the box office. Just a year after part one brought droves of audiences to movie theaters around the country, even more people bought opening weekend tickets to see the epic conclusion, “Wicked: For Good.” According to studio estimates on Sunday, “Wicked: For Good” earned $150 million from North American theaters in its first days in theaters and $226 million globally.Not only is it the biggest opening ever for a Broadway musical adaptation, unseating the record set by the first film’s $112 million launch, it’s also the second biggest debut of the year behind “A Minecraft Movie’s” $162 million.”The results are just fantastic,” said Jim Orr, who heads domestic distribution for Universal. “Some films can deliver a false positive when tickets go on sale early but these results speak for themselves.”Universal began rolling out “Wicked: For Good” in theaters earlier this week, with previews on Monday ($6.1 million from 1,050 theaters) and Wednesday ($6.5 million from 2,300 theaters). By Friday it was playing in 4,115 North American locations and had raked in $68.6 million. IMAX showings accounted for $15.5 million, or 11%, of its domestic haul — a November record for the company.IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said in a statement that the strong market share shows, “our momentum carries into demos and genres beyond our traditional core, including families.”As with the first film, women powered opening weekend, making up around 71% of ticket buyers according to PostTrak exit polls. Critics were somewhat mixed on the final chapter, but audiences weren’t: An overwhelming 83% of audiences said it was one they would “definitely recommend” to friends. As far as foot traffic is concerned, the box office tracker EntTelligence estimates that about 2 million more people came out for “Wicked: For Good’s” first weekend than for “Wicked’s.”Jon M. Chu directed both “Wicked” films, starring Cynthia Ervio and Ariana Grande. The first film made over $758.7 million worldwide and received 10 Oscar nominations (winning two, for costume and production design ). The question is how high “Wicked: For Good” can soar. Combined, the two films cost around $300 million to produce, not including marketing and promotion costs.”The first film paved the way,” Orr said. “It’s really become a cultural event I think audiences are going to be flocking to theaters for quite some time to come.”Two other films also opened in wide release this weekend, but further down on the charts behind a buffet of holdovers. Searchlight Pictures opened its Brendan Fraser film “Rental Family” in 1,925 theaters where it earned $3.3 million. The Finnish action film “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” a Sony release, also played in 2,222 theaters. It earned an estimated $2.6 million.Second place went to “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with $9.1 million in its second weekend, followed by “Predator: Badlands” with $6.3 million in weekend three. “The Running Man” followed in fourth place with $5.8 million, down 65% from its debut last weekend.Although this weekend the box office was more of a winner takes all scenario, “Wicked: For Good’s” success is vitally important for the exhibition industry as a whole as it enters the final weeks of the year.”It sets up a very strong final homestretch of the year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s head of marketplace trends.After the slow fall season, the Thanksgiving blockbusters could not arrive soon enough. Early next week, “Zootopia 2” enters the mix and is also expected to drive big crowds to the cineplex over the holiday break.Thanksgiving is often one of the biggest moviegoing frames of the year, Dergarabedian said, and both “Wicked 2” and “Zootopia 2” will benefit. Last year “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” helped power a record five-day frame.The running domestic box office is currently hovering around $7.5 billion, according to Comscore. Before the pandemic, the annual box office would regularly hit $11 billion, but the post-pandemic goal has lessened to $9 billion. The big question now is whether titles like “Wicked: For Good,” “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar:Fire and Ash” can push the industry over that threshold.Top 10 movies by domestic box officeWith final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:1. “Wicked: For Good,” $150 million.2. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” $9.1 million.3. “Predator: Badlands,” $6.3 million.4. “The Running Man,” $5.8 million.5. “Rental Family,” $3.3 million.6. “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” $2.6 million.7. “Regretting You,” $1.5 million.8. “Nuremberg,” $1.2 million.9. “Black Phone 2,” $1 million.10. “Sarah’s Oil,” $711,542.
Universal Pictures’ two-part “Wicked” gamble continues to defy gravity at the box office. Just a year after part one brought droves of audiences to movie theaters around the country, even more people bought opening weekend tickets to see the epic conclusion, “Wicked: For Good.” According to studio estimates on Sunday, “Wicked: For Good” earned $150 million from North American theaters in its first days in theaters and $226 million globally.
Not only is it the biggest opening ever for a Broadway musical adaptation, unseating the record set by the first film’s $112 million launch, it’s also the second biggest debut of the year behind “A Minecraft Movie’s” $162 million.
“The results are just fantastic,” said Jim Orr, who heads domestic distribution for Universal. “Some films can deliver a false positive when tickets go on sale early but these results speak for themselves.”
Universal began rolling out “Wicked: For Good” in theaters earlier this week, with previews on Monday ($6.1 million from 1,050 theaters) and Wednesday ($6.5 million from 2,300 theaters). By Friday it was playing in 4,115 North American locations and had raked in $68.6 million. IMAX showings accounted for $15.5 million, or 11%, of its domestic haul — a November record for the company.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said in a statement that the strong market share shows, “our momentum carries into demos and genres beyond our traditional core, including families.”
As with the first film, women powered opening weekend, making up around 71% of ticket buyers according to PostTrak exit polls. Critics were somewhat mixed on the final chapter, but audiences weren’t: An overwhelming 83% of audiences said it was one they would “definitely recommend” to friends. As far as foot traffic is concerned, the box office tracker EntTelligence estimates that about 2 million more people came out for “Wicked: For Good’s” first weekend than for “Wicked’s.”
Jon M. Chu directed both “Wicked” films, starring Cynthia Ervio and Ariana Grande. The first film made over $758.7 million worldwide and received 10 Oscar nominations (winning two, for costume and production design ). The question is how high “Wicked: For Good” can soar. Combined, the two films cost around $300 million to produce, not including marketing and promotion costs.
“The first film paved the way,” Orr said. “It’s really become a cultural event I think audiences are going to be flocking to theaters for quite some time to come.”
Two other films also opened in wide release this weekend, but further down on the charts behind a buffet of holdovers. Searchlight Pictures opened its Brendan Fraser film “Rental Family” in 1,925 theaters where it earned $3.3 million. The Finnish action film “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” a Sony release, also played in 2,222 theaters. It earned an estimated $2.6 million.
Second place went to “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with $9.1 million in its second weekend, followed by “Predator: Badlands” with $6.3 million in weekend three. “The Running Man” followed in fourth place with $5.8 million, down 65% from its debut last weekend.
Although this weekend the box office was more of a winner takes all scenario, “Wicked: For Good’s” success is vitally important for the exhibition industry as a whole as it enters the final weeks of the year.
“It sets up a very strong final homestretch of the year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s head of marketplace trends.
After the slow fall season, the Thanksgiving blockbusters could not arrive soon enough. Early next week, “Zootopia 2” enters the mix and is also expected to drive big crowds to the cineplex over the holiday break.
Thanksgiving is often one of the biggest moviegoing frames of the year, Dergarabedian said, and both “Wicked 2” and “Zootopia 2” will benefit. Last year “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” helped power a record five-day frame.
The running domestic box office is currently hovering around $7.5 billion, according to Comscore. Before the pandemic, the annual box office would regularly hit $11 billion, but the post-pandemic goal has lessened to $9 billion. The big question now is whether titles like “Wicked: For Good,” “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar:Fire and Ash” can push the industry over that threshold.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
1. “Wicked: For Good,” $150 million.
2. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” $9.1 million.
3. “Predator: Badlands,” $6.3 million.
4. “The Running Man,” $5.8 million.
5. “Rental Family,” $3.3 million.
6. “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” $2.6 million.
7. “Regretting You,” $1.5 million.
8. “Nuremberg,” $1.2 million.
9. “Black Phone 2,” $1 million.
10. “Sarah’s Oil,” $711,542.
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After their journey through Oz, it’s safe to say that Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have been changed for good.
The Wicked: For Good stars bid farewell to Glinda and Elphaba in some bittersweet tributes to the characters as part two of the Jon M. Chu-helmed movie musical premiered on Friday in theaters.
“Thank you, my sweet Glinda, for everything,” wrote Grande on Instagram. “I will love you always … Wicked: For Good is out now.”
Erivo captioned her own post, “I could write you an essay, a poem, Shakespearean prose, to describe what this journey has meant to me, what lessons this time has taught me, bought me. I could try to give a metric to the love I have felt and experienced. I could give a number to the stories I have heard. The truth is the numbers are too small and the words are not enough. So I’ll simply say this.
“Take my hand and walk with me to the end of this road paved with gold and hopefully, the things that I’ve found, might find you too,” she continued. “Thank you for letting me be your Elphaba. All my love, C”
Following last year’s Wicked, the second installment of the feature adaptation has marked a career-best opening for Grande, Erivo and Chu, with a $150M domestic bow and $226M globally.
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Glenn Garner
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An Australian man who rushed film star Ariana Grande during the Singapore premiere for “Wicked: For Good” has been deported after completing a nine-day jail term, local media reported.
The man, Johnson Wen, was sent back to Australia and “has been barred from re-entering Singapore,” the city-state’s immigration authority said in a statement quoted by broadcaster CNA.
Grande and other stars were attending the opening night of the highly anticipated film at Universal Studios in Singapore when 26-year-old Wen jumped a barricade and rushed the actor. He put his arm around Grande.
Viral clips showed Grande’s co-star, Cynthia Erivo, rushing to her defense, getting in between the two of them and shoving him away. Wen was then grabbed by security guards and dumped back over the barricade.
Footage shows Erivo and others on the red carpet comforting Grande.
Wen was arrested hours later and charged with “being a public nuisance.” Last week, a court sentenced him to nine days in jail.
After the incident, Wen shared a video on Instagram and thanked Grande for “letting (him) jump on the Yellow Carpet” with her.
Singapore District Judge Christopher Goh, who issued the jail sentence, called the Australian “attention seeking.”
Wen, who is alleged to have disrupted other global sports events and concerts, “showed a pattern of behaviour” which suggested that he will do it again, the judge had said before last week’s ruling.
The jail term was far below the maximum penalty afforded by law: three months in jail, a fine of $1,500, or both.
Wen has told the court he was “wrong” to think his actions would bear no consequences and promised not to repeat the act.
“Wicked: For Good” was released in the United States on Friday.
Grande and Erivo have been inseparable during the movie musical’s press tours. In December 2024, Erivo told “CBS Mornings” that the duo made a pact early in production to take care of and support each other.
“Before we started shooting, both of us had a conversation about making sure that we would take care of each other and make the space that we needed for each other, and take, you know, give each other what we needed, be generous with each other in this thing, because we knew it was a big undertaking,” Erivo said. “We knew we had a big responsibility, but we knew neither of us could really do that alone.”
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As audiences fly to see Wicked: For Good this weekend (and the next, and the one after that…), the world of Oz may have more to offer.
During the film’s New York premiere, the musical’s creator, Stephen Schwartz, told The Ankler “the right idea” may not exist for a proper sequel. That said, he did reveal he’s working with the films’ co-writer Winnie Holzman on ideas set in the world of Wicked. Dependent on how well For Good does at the box office, of course, but he considers Elphaba and Glinda’s stories complete, so that potential continuation would have to be something different: “Not a sequel, but an adjunct,” he told the outlet.
Whatever this idea is, it’s separate from adapting post-Wicked novels that were written by Gregory Maguire, as well as the later Oz books written by Frank L. Baum and other writers of the original Oz canon. The only stipulation Schwartz has right now is that such a project exists “beyond simply making money. As far as right now, no one has yet presented an idea that I’ve heard that would justify such a thing.” He thinks such a follow-up could exist, but even if it doesn’t, Wicked and Wicked: For Good have succeeded in renewing interest in movie musicals.
“In success, everybody wins,” added the film’s executive music producer, Stephen Oremus. “If the Wicked movies get people excited about telling musical stories and more movies get made or start development, it just goes to show you that’s incredible.”
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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Justin Carter
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new video loaded: ‘Wicked: For Good’ Tells a Story Through Color
By Sarah Bahr, Edward Vega, Gabriel Blanco and Laura Salaberry
November 22, 2025
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Sarah Bahr, Edward Vega, Gabriel Blanco and Laura Salaberry
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While there may be no perfect way to handle Dorothy’s inclusion in the story of Wicked and Wicked: For Good, the new Jon M. Chu movie portrays the character in a smart way.
The events of The Wizard of Oz begin to transpire in the second half of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked musical. Dorothy Gale is never actually seen in the show; rather, her presence is merely suggested and discussed, though a silhouette of the character is seen throwing a bucket of water at Elphaba near the end.
Universal Pictures‘ Wicked: For Good, which is now playing in United States theaters, handles Dorothy’s presence in Oz in a similar fashion. Not only does the character have very limited screen time, but her face is never actually shown. The events of The Wizard of Oz are referenced, but very rarely actually seen on the screen.
Some may find this distracting; however, it’s the best way to adapt the source material. Wicked isn’t The Wizard of Oz — meaning, you probably already know how Dorothy dropped in, met some friends, and went on a quest. We’re telling a different story in Wicked, and we don’t need to spend too much time recapping the beloved 1939 film.
Showing Dorothy’s face would have invited a whole bunch of unfair comparisons to Judy Garland. If they were to give Dorothy a larger role and have her speak, the internet would be abuzz comparing her to past interpretations of the character, which then would have taken the spotlight away from the movie’s actual stars, Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo).
Chu has more or less confirmed that this was his reasoning for not showing Dorothy’s face, as he told People, “I didn’t want to step on who you think Dorothy is in whatever story that you came into this with. [This] is still Elphaba and Glinda’s journey, and she is a pawn in the middle of all of it.”
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Brandon Schreur
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