According to filmmaker Jon M. Chu, Wicked will be broken into two films that will be released one year apart.
The director made the announcement on Tuesday morning via social media, which was later reposted by Ariana Grande, who is due to star as Glinda in the films.
The films, which are based on the Broadway musical, will open on December 25, 2024 and December 25, 2025, respectively.
Ariana was cast as Glinda the Good Witch in November, with co-star Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba.
The film "Wicked" is based on the hit Broadway play of the same name, which was based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel "Wicked: The Life" and "Times of the Wicked Witch of the West".
Jon explained the decision to split the movie into two films in a lengthy Instagram post Tuesday.
He explained that attempting to squeeze it into a single film resulted in the elimination of songs or characters, which lead him and his team to recognize it needed to be split into two films.
Over the course of the previous year, it became increasingly evident that it would be difficult to condense the tale of Wicked iinto a single picture without doing significant damage to it, he explained.
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"As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us for so many years," he added. "'So we decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one Wicked movie but two!!!!," he wrote excitedly.
Because of additional room, the team can tell the tale of Wicked in the manner in which it was intended to be told while adding even more depth and surprise to the adventures of these beloved characters, he further said.
Jon, who directed In The Heights, stated, "'Cynthia, Ariana, and I - and all of the cast and crew - pledge to create nothing less than an experience that honors its foundation for all the fans who've waited for this movie, and to offer a thrilling, fantastical world full of dynamic characters that invites in those who are unfamiliar."
Ariana, 28, disclosed her role in the flicks on Instagram in November 2021 with screengrabs of a Zoom chat with her co-star Cynthia and Jon.
She captioned the photo 'Thank goodness,' a blatant homage to the Wicked song of the same name, which Kristin Chenoweth first sung in the Broadway show.
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