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Total Film
Total Film
Entertainment
Emily Garbutt

New Wicked trailer teases romance, schemes, and doomed friendship as Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo form an unlikely bond

A new trailer for The Wizard of Oz prequel Wicked is here – and it promises to tell us "everything" that happened "before Dorothy".

The new clip, which you can watch above, starts with an ominous tone, as Glinda announces that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. We rewind a bit after that, though, and we see Elphaba and Glinda meeting for the first time, as well as Elphaba learning of the extent of her powers. When the pair travel to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz, however, it's clear that he's not all he's cracked up to be – his plan to unite the people of Oz is to get them behind a common enemy, and that just so happens to be Elphaba. 

We also get a glimpse of Elphaba and Fiyero interacting. "Why is it you're always causing some sort of commotion?" he asks her. "I don't cause commotion. I am one," she replies. "Some of us are just different."

Based on the hugely popular Broadway and West End musical of the same name (which, in turn, was adapted from the novel by Gregory Maguire), the movie follows two witches who become unlikely friends while studying at Shiz University: popular Glinda (Ariana Grande) and outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo).

Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights helmer Jon M. Chu is in the director's chair, and the cast also includes Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Michelle Yeoh as Shiz headmistress Madame Morrible, Peter Dinklage as Doctor Dillamond, a four-legged professor at the university, and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz.

"It's scary to make Wicked because everyone has such high expectations and if we do it, if we go middle of the road, no one will be satisfied, especially us," Chu previously told GamesRadar+. "We all had to be bold, and we all had to stick our necks out and sometimes be scared of what people would think. But we knew that the only way to excellence was to be able to go through that together." 

Wicked arrives on the big screen on November 22. In the meantime, check out our guide to the rest of this year's biggest upcoming movies

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