Wicked secretly follows a trend set by Steven Spielberg’s musical adaptation from 3 years ago

Warning: This article includes spoilers for Wicked!

Universal Evil secretly follows a trend set by Steven Spielberg’s award-winning musical film from 3 years ago, setting up the 2024 film for success. Since the musical was released on Broadway in 2003, Wicked has gained a passionate fan base. Unsurprisingly, after winning 10 Tony Awards, discussions began about adapting the story for the screen. The format changed several times, finally resulting in two parts Evil film that will be released in November 2024 and 2025.

There are many reasons for viewers to be excited about the movie Wicked, but one of the biggest isn’t immediately recognizable at first glance. Universal’s musical secretly followed a musical adaptation casting trend set by a 2021 Steven Spielberg film, which future films should strive to emulate.

Most of Wicked’s actors have Broadway experience, such as Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story

Wicked’s cast is full of Broadway and West End actors

When West Side History Released in 2021, the film received praise for casting primarily Broadway actors in lead and supporting roles rather than Hollywood actors. Since then, other musical adaptations have received criticism on social media for not following this trend. Excitingly, Evil secretly followed Steven Spielberg’s example West Side History. Looking at the main cast of Evilonly Cynthia Erivo and Ethan Slater stand out as famous Broadway actors. However, almost all of the lead actors have experience acting on Broadway or the West End.

Ariana Grande may be known for singing and acting on screen, but the multi-hyphenate artist actually began her career performing on Broadway as Charlotte in the musical 13. Jeff Goldblum, Keala Settle and Jonathan Bailey have been nominated for or won prestigious awards for their stage performances. Outside of the main actors, Wicked’s supporting and secondary characters are also full of well-known West End actors (through What’s on the stage).

The choice of Broadway actors was especially important for the adaptation of Wicked

While most musicals manage to include actors with decent singing skills, the stakes were very high with Wicked. The musical is one of the longest-running Broadway musicals of all time, so everything has to be perfect. Singing will be scrutinized with especially high standards. The musical version of Wicked is not the most easily accessible due to financial and location barriers. However, the album Wicked (Original Broadway Cast Recording) is easily accessible, allowing anyone with internet access to listen to the soundtrack by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.

It is not surprising that Evil soundtrack is the fifth best-selling Broadway album of all time (via Poster), which means that most people who have seen the movie Wicked will have heard the song. As such, they expect music of the same caliber as the music they are familiar with. By casting actors with Broadway and West End experience in Evilthe producers ensured that the music would reach the same level of quality as the original soundtrack, even though each artist had their own approach to the iconic song.