The trailer forWicked: For Good was screened exclusively at CinemaCon yesterday, and early reactions are calling it “dazzling” and “intriguing.”
The film is the much-anticipated sequel to last year’s blockbuster musical Wicked and is set to arrive in theaters on November 21 this year.
The first footage from the film was presented at the annual conference for theater owners and distributors in Las Vegas, presented by director Jon M Chu, producer Marc Platt, and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
According to multiple reports, the clip shown exclusively to the in-house audience introduced classic Wizard of Oz characters Dorothy, the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow to the story.
The trailer also included Erivo and Grande singing popular Wicked second-act songs “For Good” and “No Good Deed” but did not preview the two new songs reportedly written for the sequel by original Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz.
Variety described the first glimpses of the new film as “dazzling,” while The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “To say the Wicked footage bewitched the packed house is an understatement and received a rousing response.”
Gizmodo added that “it was a trailer filled with lots of very cool and intriguing moments.”
Deadline noted that while there were “no musical performances a la Erivo and Grande’s at the Oscars” during the presentation, “the trailer shown to theater owners inside the room was epic enough. And they went nuts for it.”
No release date has yet been announced for the trailer.
The first Wicked film, which was based on the first act of the hit Broadway musical, was a box office success but divided critics.
In a three-star review for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “Wicked looks like every other film now. That’s its problem. It may be the screen adaptation of the stage musical – itself based on a 1995 novel – but, within moments, it also tethers itself directly to the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz.
“And while that film’s Emerald City and Land of Oz have been cemented in the public imagination as brilliant-hued dream worlds, and the most famous demonstration of the Technicolor process, Wicked is shot and lit like we’re being sold an Airbnb in Mykonos.”
Chu has previously said that the second part of the film is “eight times more relevant” because of where we are “in society right now.”
Asked last November how the filmmakers intended to keep the film’s momentum going during the year-long gap between installments, Chu replueed: “I don’t know, but ‘Part Two,’ I will say because I’ve cut ‘Part Two’ together, is a doozy.”
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