He claims that they don't want to damage the property by trimming it down by cutting songs or deleting scenes and have instead opted to expand the adaptation into two films.
Fans are skeptical. Wicked runs at a good pace, so why would a film version need to be much longer? The songs, admittedly, are mostly indispensable. Sure, there's some you could delete and write around, but if you were going to do that, why are you making a musical? And there's always the cynical outlook that by splitting it into two films, the studio hopes to double their profits, especially with a built in audience.
Personally, I'm hoping to see the film version be a very different beast than the musical. In my opinion, the dialogue might be the weakest point of the show, so doing an overhaul for film could be a big improvement.
There's elements from the Gregory Maguire novel that could come back. I doubt we'll get some of the more mature scenes added in, but maybe we'll get more details like Fiyero being a person of color and his tattoos.
Ariana Grande has confirmed she's reading the original Baum Oz books to prepare for the role of Glinda. Could it be that they want to have her grow into a character more like Baum's original? Are we going to see Easter eggs for the original series? We'll see.
As of yet, there are no further castings announced. I'm sure some roles have been cast, they're just not ready to announce them. They have confirmed, however, that the films are intended to release during the Christmas season in 2024 and 2025.
