Why Splitting Wicked into Two Movies was the Right Call

The decision to split the upcoming Wicked adaptation into two films generated some backlash online. The general consensus was that making two movies out of one musical just seemed excessive. Longer and denser stories have been packed into one film’s runtime effectively before. If Christopher Nolan could fit all of Oppenheimer into one film, why couldn’t Jon M. Chu do the same with Wicked?

Without a doubt, the amount of characters, plot points, and worldbuilding necessary for the story is an important consideration. But when it comes to deciding to tell a story in one part or two, there is a much more important factor - the structure of the story. And Wicked, like most musicals, was built to be told in two parts: Act One, and Act Two.

Let’s look at a case study. Sondheim’s popular 1986 musical Into the Woods was adapted into a movie in 2014. The first act of Into the Woods runs through several popular fairy tales. Cinderella runs away from and then is found by her prince. Jack travels up a beanstalk and kills a giant. Little Red Ridinghood is eaten by, and then exits, a wolf. Imagine you are sitting in a darkened theater, watching these familiar stories near their conclusions. You can tell we’re getting close to the end. You start fidgeting in your seat. You wonder how long the bathroom line is going to be.

The lights come up, you handle your business. You sit back in your chair, and it starts to dawn on you: all these fairy tales have reached their end, but there is still 90 minutes of Act Two to come. Your curiosity spikes. What could possibly come after Happily Ever After? The lights go down, and you eagerly await to see where the story goes next.

Now, let’s zoom forward to 2014. You watch Cinderella and Jack and Red near their happily ever afters, and you start to think the movie’s about to end. But then, as you’re fidgeting in your seat, the beanstalk falls, a Giantess starts razing villages, and our heroes are launched on another journey. So, it’s not over? You settle back in your seat. You have no idea how much time is left in the movie, and you can’t stop talking about the bathroom.

It doesn’t matter how excellent or riveting the second half of the movie is. Every second will wear on the audience because they recognized the end of a story arc and they started to think about the world outside the theater. The story promised an ending, and the film broke that promise.

Each act of a musical has its own beginning, middle, and end. Audiences need a break inbetween. Think: would you want to see one film with the events of both A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back? Hunger Games and Catching Fire? Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2? The stories may be continuous, but each installment is its own contained arc.

Act One of Wicked doesn’t end on a clear Happy Ever After like Into the Woods does, but a significant amount of time passes between the end of one act and the start of the other. And it is important that the audience feel that time. Time transforms Glinda and Fiyero from flirtatious school kids into a couple ready to be engaged. Time turns Boq’s polite courtship with Nessarose into a prison. And time spreads tales of the evil Wicked Witch throughout Oz. Perhaps we will be feeling more of that time between films than we would between acts of a musical. But I believe it is time well earned.

Also, I’m like, super excited for this movie guys.