Sunday Special: Wicked, Good?

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Speaker 2 Welcome to the Sunday Special. I'm Gilbert Cruz.

Speaker 2 Wicked is back. Wicked for Good has just been released.
This is film number two. The first movie, simply titled Wicked, came out almost exactly one year ago today.

Speaker 2 And Wicked for Good is going to be one of the biggest films of the year.

Speaker 2 Joining me to talk about it is Kyle Buchanan, who covers Hollywood for the Times and who recently profiled Ariana Grande, one of the stars of the film. Hello, Kyle.
Hello, Gilbert.

Speaker 2 And Madison Malone Kircher, who covers internet culture for the Times, but more importantly, for the purposes of this conversation, is an ASEAN. She is a wicked enthusiast.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we'll go with that.

Speaker 2 Hello, Madison.

Speaker 3 I'm thrillified to be here.

Speaker 2 We're going to try not to spoil too much of this movie, but we are going to talk about some specific scenes. So if you're the type of person for which that is important, keep that in mind.

Speaker 2 All right, to get started, I think listeners should have a sense from all of us of where we stand. Wicked-wise, in relation to wicked.
How wickified are we? How wicked-pilled are we?

Speaker 2 I've never seen the Broadway show, but I've seen the first movie several times. I enjoyed it.
Saw the second movie, listened to the music. Kyle, we're going to start with you.

Speaker 2 What's your relationship to Wicked?

Speaker 1 You know, I came to Wicked as something of a virgin. I had never seen it on stage, which made me feel like a little bit of an aberration.

Speaker 1 But I actually think that gave me a very sort of clean perspective on the movie project itself. And also,

Speaker 1 this may well be how people come to Wicked in the future because the movies are such a phenomenon that that I think a lot of people and future generations will experience this as a movie-first situation.

Speaker 2 Madison, you are slightly

Speaker 3 perhaps slightly more or less green, I guess, in this particular movie.

Speaker 2 You're a little different from Kyle here. You were familiar with the musical.

Speaker 3 I am familiar with the musical. I have seen it on the Broadway.

Speaker 3 When Wicked returned after the pandemic shut down, deep in the pandemic, my little sister called me and said, we have to be there the first night.

Speaker 3 And we like Wicked, but this is not like a musical that we have a deep, long sisterly tradition of. And I said, why? And she goes, the first line.

Speaker 3 Glenda comes down from the bubble and says, it's good to see me, isn't it? And my sister said, the crowd is going to go nuts. It will cure the depression we've been sunk into for years.

Speaker 3 And she was right. She was really right.
Being there that night was, for lack of a better word, magical.

Speaker 2 Was that the first time that you had seen it?

Speaker 3 I had seen it in Chicago of all places.

Speaker 3 And also, I grew up as a young millennial musical theater geek with blonde hair and a gentle curl, as it were.

Speaker 3 So, what I'm saying is, I did sing for good at my eighth-grade graduation with a girl I literally never saw again after that day.

Speaker 3 I think this was a formative experience for me.

Speaker 2 Some people come into your life for a reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 It's because they can also like hold a pitch.

Speaker 2 Before these movies came out, would you say that this was something that you had ever been interested in seeing a film version of?

Speaker 3 I mean, been interested. I don't know how closely you followed the production of Wicked, the film.

Speaker 2 It took decades. Is that right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, a very long time.

Speaker 3 It was, it was sort of like, you know, like Lucy and the football for many of us online. It was like, wicked movie is coming, wicked movie is coming.

Speaker 3 You get, you know, I was working in entertainment journalism. You'd get dribs and drabs of announcements and we'd all sort of be like, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 Sure. See you when I see you.
So yeah, it was exciting to finally see it. become made manifest.

Speaker 2 So now that we've established where each of us stand, I want to sort of focus on these two movies for a bit. You know, the team behind this decided to split the story into two separate films.

Speaker 2 Essentially, Wicked is Act One, Wicked for Good is Act Two.

Speaker 2 This was a choice that, you know, in the lead up to the release of the first film last year, a lot of people were talking smack about. They were like, why are we doing this?

Speaker 2 This is a musical in which you're going to have a second movie full of lackluster songs in which there's not a ton of plot. The first film, however, was an undeniable success.

Speaker 2 It was financially successful, culturally dominant, somewhat critically successful. It was nominated for Best Picture.

Speaker 2 What are you staring at? Which I still think is crazy. The first movie, just to remind people what it's about, it's about Alphaba.
She becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. You're green.

Speaker 2 You have Blinda, who becomes the Good Witch.

Speaker 2 She's so good. We love you.
Takes you through their school years where they go to Shiz

Speaker 2 University, which is

Speaker 2 a name they should have changed for the movie.

Speaker 1 Alphabet

Speaker 3 You Can Room with Miss Galinda.

Speaker 2 They form this unlikely friendship, and the movie ends with arguably the musical's biggest hit, which is Defying Gravity.

Speaker 3 There is no fight we cannot win,

Speaker 3 just you and I

Speaker 3 defying gravity.

Speaker 2 Kyle, you've spoken to members of the cast and the crew over the past couple years. Did these two films always feel like they were going to be a success?

Speaker 1 I think people hoped that they would be, but there was enough precedent to suggest that they wouldn't.

Speaker 1 I mean, when you look at the really big musical theater phenomenons that have come out on film, something like, you know, Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera, they couldn't quite translate that gigantic, overwhelming enthusiasm to, you know, big Baffo box office scores.

Speaker 1 And then you had, you know, outright bombs like Deer Evan Hansen or Katz that maybe did a little bit of damage to the actual, you know, brand on stage.

Speaker 1 So it was not a done deal at all that Wicked would be a success. And in fact, I think that's why it took so long to get off the ground.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's interesting to think about that because movie musicals, since the invention of sound, have been one of the mainstays of sort of big Hollywood productions.

Speaker 2 They've obviously gone through peaks and dips. You had, you know, you had the phase where we were making Dr.
Doolittle and stuff like that in the late 60s, and that was pretty awful.

Speaker 2 You talk about Le Miz. I think we were both working at Vulture at the time.
I was so excited because I love Le Miz.

Speaker 2 And I think within the first 15 minutes, I was like, this is going to be rough going. Stars.

Speaker 2 Russell Crowe is a great actor.

Speaker 2 He should not have been in that movie.

Speaker 2 And yet, Wicked Part One was a great success. And I think that's in part not just because of the film, but also because of the lead-up to the release.

Speaker 2 I think we've all observed how the way that actors and stars do the press circuit now is as entertaining sometimes as the film itself.

Speaker 2 And Ariana and Cynthia were on what seemed like a 32-month press tour.

Speaker 2 It just lasted forever. And Madison, you observed so much for this one.

Speaker 3 As the chronically online person in the room, yes, the pink and green blur that was the press tour for Wicked Part 1. Ariana and Cynthia were everywhere, and notably they were everywhere together.

Speaker 3 This is a film about sisterhood, which apparently means you can never leave each other's side. They are everywhere.
They're constantly in costume-adjacent dress.

Speaker 3 Like, lest you forget, like, I am green and she is pink, and which, which is which, you could not, you could not forget, you could not escape it.

Speaker 3 I think perhaps the biggest and most viral moment, though, that breaks out of this particular press circuit is, and I will now,

Speaker 2 Kyle, can I have your finger?

Speaker 3 I'm delicately clutching Kyle's pointer finger.

Speaker 3 The moment in which the phrase, holding space for defying gravity, enters the digital lexicon. It was a,

Speaker 3 what should have been just an incredibly or potentially incredibly mundane press junket interview.

Speaker 4 This week, people are taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity and really holding space with that.

Speaker 3 An interviewer named Tracy Gilchrist asked arguably just an insane question

Speaker 3 about people online holding space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity.

Speaker 3 Ariana and Cynthia are incredibly consummate, professional, polite, but you can tell behind their eyes they're going, What is this person asking us about?

Speaker 2 I can't remember which one of them says it, but they're like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't know that was happening.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that was happening.

Speaker 4 I've seen it on a couple posts. I don't know how widespread, but you know, I am in queer media.
So that's.

Speaker 3 And it goes on to become this moment. Brands co-opted.
It becomes a meme.

Speaker 3 This phrase transcends the film in the way that marketers sit in a room and go, okay, how can we figure out

Speaker 3 how to have a holding space moment? Like, it was one of those, the sort of thing you cannot fake.

Speaker 2 I have to say, it must have been amazing for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Rivo because you're asked the same questions over and over. You're some variation of the same questions.

Speaker 2 And then for this one magical moment, they have no idea what's going on. And they really have to, you know, respond in real time.

Speaker 1 I also think that Ariana and Cynthia, you know, they have this ability on screen and certainly when they sing to sort of match each other's frequency.

Speaker 1 They can also do that emotionally in real life, but certainly in this case, where nobody was quite sure what anyone was doing, and yet the moment continued to heighten, heighten, heighten until it reached an absolutely absurd place i don't know that anybody involved knows how they got there but uh god bless them for doing that's what's beautiful about it um there is still magic in the world is is my reaction to that video so we also wicked for good

Speaker 2 and i would love to talk about it listeners again you've been warned it's been 22 years since the musical came out and about three days since the movie came out we're going to talk about it there's a bit of a time jump from the first film haven't you heard

Speaker 3 I'm the Wicked Witch of the West.

Speaker 2 Alphaba has been officially branded the Wicked Witch of the West by The Wizard of Oz, played by Jeff Goldblum in this film, and Madame Morable, played by Michelle Yeo.

Speaker 3 The Wicked Witch can't elude us forever.

Speaker 2 The two of them, they're still being mean to animals, and Alphaba is still trying to free all the animals. Blinda has been made like the propaganda face of this new administration here.

Speaker 3 It's more important than ever

Speaker 3 that you lift everyone's spirits.

Speaker 2 She's tasked with wearing a lot of pink, lifting the spirits of the people of Oz. But the thing is, she still loves her friend, and she still wants the best for her.
Alphaba.

Speaker 3 They're coming for you.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of other stuff that goes on. The film is darker than the first one.
There's a lot of not very subtle political undertones.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about it. Madison, you, as we establish, are the biggest fan of Wicked in the entire New York Times building.

Speaker 2 What is your understanding of the difficulties of adapting essentially the second act of the show to its own film?

Speaker 3 Notably, Act One ends on the highest note in the show, right? It ends on that riff and defying gravity. It is, there's quite literal height to it.
And so there's an immediate crash that follows.

Speaker 3 And the second act of the show is fairly thin, both in terms of content. There's not a ton of plot left to to happen.
The big twists don't come until the last, you know, 10 minutes or so.

Speaker 3 There aren't that many songs.

Speaker 3 Quite literally, there just aren't that many numbers. And frankly, I'm so sorry to anyone out here who's in this for the wizard, but like

Speaker 3 wonderful, sentimental man, repress. These are the songs that we, the musical theater girlies, skip.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You don't like the guys.

Speaker 3 Yeah, obviously. I'm not.
No one is watching Wicked for the Men.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Well, apologies to People magazine, I suppose.

Speaker 2 And Jonathan Bailing. That is the sexiest man alive.

Speaker 3 But it's very thin. There's not a ton of plot.
A lot of it exists simply to tie in the world that Gregor McGuire, the author of the book, has built around the existing Wizard of Oz IP.

Speaker 3 So, you know, the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy Gale, the entire story you know and love, so much happened before the house dropped in.

Speaker 3 Like, mostly the second act exists to tie all those things together and make you go, oh. And then you get for good and we all cry.

Speaker 2 That's a really good song.

Speaker 1 But it's interesting, too, because as somebody who came to this material very fresh and with a cynical eye of, oh, are they really splitting it into for maximum profit?

Speaker 1 When I watched the first movie, I was surprised at how complete it felt. Agreed.
It felt to me as though all of the real questions of this property were answered by the end.

Speaker 1 I know why she became the wicked witch. So I sort of wondered to myself, what more terrain is there to cover in the second movie?

Speaker 1 And I think having seen it, the answer is it doesn't feel necessarily like a complete and urgent movie in the way that the first one does, but I do think it works as sort of an extended coda with these characters.

Speaker 1 If you liked spending time with these two in the first movie, well, here you go. Here's two hours more that you can have to wrap up that experience.

Speaker 1 I do think, like, even if it doesn't feel like this film has the same stakes as the original, that people, that audiences will appreciate that extended time that they get with Cynthia and Ariana.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And as someone who, again, wrote about Ariana for the Times,

Speaker 2 it seems like a lot of this film was really predicated on her character, her character arc, her performance.

Speaker 2 What was your understanding of what she and the director John Chu sort of tried to do with Glinda?

Speaker 1 Yeah, even when John decided to split these movies into two, the first script he printed on green pages and the second one he printed on pink, you know, just to sort of indicate that the second film, in a lot of ways, the arc is Glinda's, or at least the most interesting conflict here.

Speaker 1 You know, Glinda has sort of bought into this fascist ideal that the wizard is espousing because it means that she gets to wear a lot of pretty pink dresses and be famous.

Speaker 1 But within that gilded life, within that bubble, she's dying inside. She doesn't have access to her friends.
Everybody's kind of turning on her and she has to keep espousing these lies.

Speaker 1 And I think Ariana plays this really well. You know, I think all of Cynthia's highlights, at least the major parts of that performance that everyone will remember, are in the first movie.

Speaker 1 And a lot of the really strong dramatic material that Ariana gets is in the second one.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Madison, what did you think of the film?

Speaker 2 Horrendable. That is extreme.
Horrendable. Hideodious.

Speaker 3 I'm running out of Aussie and slang

Speaker 3 from my memory.

Speaker 3 I didn't love it. It just felt thin.
And I agree to your point about the first film feeling just beautifully composed.

Speaker 3 I went into that movie with very high expectations and I left having them met, if not exceeded.

Speaker 3 I was deeply impressed with Ariana Grande, who was giving Doris Day if she wore highlighter from Pat McGrath.

Speaker 3 Just genuinely was very impressed by both of those performances and the film and left thinking, okay, let's see what they got for part two.

Speaker 3 The new songs didn't do a ton for me.

Speaker 2 There's not a ton of songs. There are two new songs.

Speaker 3 There are two new songs, one of which is called The Girl in the Bubble. It's incredibly heavy-handed.
Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 It all but stopped short of having Ariana, you know, poke the bubble in.

Speaker 2 You're saying a musical theater song is heavy-handed. You know,

Speaker 3 there's some room for subtlety. Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 Isn't it high time

Speaker 2 for her

Speaker 2 bubble

Speaker 3 There simply isn't enough plot to sustain it.

Speaker 3 And also, by nature of the politics of the world we're living in right now, so many of the undertones just feel, I've already used heavy-handed, ham-fisted.

Speaker 3 They just, it's, there's no magic, there's only drudgery.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree with you that some of it does feel heavy-handed, the sort of the present-day resonances, but the original book and by virtue of that, the original musical, that stuff is baked into there as well.

Speaker 2 When Gregory Maguire wrote this in 1995, when the musical came out around the time of the Iraq war, you know, it was sort of a different idea of who's in power and what are the messages that they were giving us and who are the people that are spreading what some consider to be propaganda.

Speaker 3 And that comes down to the difference between a 45-minute second act and a two-hour and 18-minute second act. Because at a certain point, you're just saying the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 2 There's so many banners in this movie.

Speaker 3 So many banners.

Speaker 2 What's the banner budget? Every scene is like, here's new banners from the sky. They're all saying the Wicked Witches pass.
At a certain point, we got it.

Speaker 1 I want to push back on something, though, which is, you know, you're criticizing the heavy-handedness of the fascist message and the metaphors.

Speaker 1 But I don't think they worked on our dear friend Gilbert Cruz because Gilbert is very anti-animal after after having watched the Wiccan movies. This is.

Speaker 1 Gilbert does not want those animals to have rights.

Speaker 2 This is totally unnecessary to put here.

Speaker 2 Gilbert.

Speaker 2 I love animals.

Speaker 2 Prove it.

Speaker 3 You just don't want to listen to what they have to say.

Speaker 2 I just, I don't know that predicating Alphaba's entire journey on wanting to advocate for animal rights is the strongest or most convincing motivation for a character. Animals are great.

Speaker 2 I don't want to hear them talk.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's just what, do we care this much about the animals of Oz?

Speaker 2 What is the animal system? We see one animal who's a teacher, not a very good teacher as far as I could tell, and that is what we're supposed to base our entire love of this animal underclass on.

Speaker 1 I'm just imagining Gilbert going to rate my teacher.com and looking at Dr.

Speaker 2 Dr. Denman's scores.

Speaker 2 I do not understand the animal hierarchy in Oz. Neither do I understand, as you recall.

Speaker 3 At one point during this movie, I'm taking notes in a notebook, like, you know, a good little journalist, and Gilbert just shoulders me, like elbows me in the shoulder and takes my pen and scribbles in his hand.

Speaker 3 We get to the end of the film and I'm like, Gilbert, what, and it's the only note you took the entire movie. Yeah.
What did you write down?

Speaker 2 I wrote down what is Oz's political system.

Speaker 2 The entire first half of the movie. I was like, so is the wizard a dictator? Where is the government? I understand there's this council of governors and Nessa Rose is a Munchkin governor.

Speaker 3 But canonically, Munchkin City also has a mayor. Like, that's the source text.
So I agree.

Speaker 2 Can you see my confusion? Yeah, no, I agree. Okay.

Speaker 2 She's green. Just go with it.
You're right. You're right.
I'm thinking too much about it. All that being said,

Speaker 2 there's some pretty great highs in this. I found For Good quite emotionally moving.

Speaker 2 There's a scene towards the end where they are in the tower and Alphaba puts Lindo behind a door and and says, you have to hide here.

Speaker 2 She puts her in the closet. Dorothy is coming.
Take the book, hide here. There's a split screen and the two of them are on opposite sides of the door for quite a long time.

Speaker 2 And I was just like, these two love each other so much.

Speaker 2 When are they going to kiss? And they never did.

Speaker 1 Well, that's something that they arrived in in rehearsals, according to John Chu. Really?

Speaker 1 When they were just simply rehearsing it before I think they'd even gotten to London where they shot this film, Ariana and Cynthia were singing that song and then essentially mime Dadore.

Speaker 1 So their relationship, their bond is what informed the staging of that movie, ultimately.

Speaker 2 Madison, what are the scenes that stuck with you, good or bad?

Speaker 3 Well, we have to talk about the cardigan and the shoulder.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 there's a slightly racy scene for a PG movie, I feel like, in this film.

Speaker 2 Kiss me too fiercely.

Speaker 2 which is Fiero who's played by Jonathan Bailey.

Speaker 3 The man people are coming to see Wicked for my sincerest support.

Speaker 2 The sexiest man alive. He is Glinda's fiancée, but since the first film, he has been in love with Alphaba.
He's the head of essentially the Wizard's Royal Guard at this point in the story.

Speaker 2 But he makes a decision to flee with Alphaba.

Speaker 2 They go to her tree house in the woods and they have a love scene. I'll wake

Speaker 2 And Alphabet takes off her robe, which I was wondering, is she just going to wear this the whole movie? Does she ever bathe? Like, what's going on? And she puts on a very ratty-looking gray sweater.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of shoulder action going on. Ratty chic.
Ratty chic.

Speaker 3 It's this long coat sweater that looks like it's from a costuming plot from a like modernist take on cats. Like Like that is Grizabella's costume in some college production, a black box of cats.

Speaker 1 They don't have Unique Low and

Speaker 1 not yet.

Speaker 1 Maybe post-wizard.

Speaker 2 I was, maybe I'm just a bit of a prude, but I was surprised at the heat that was generated in this scene.

Speaker 1 I was honestly surprised to get even just the amount of bare shoulders, the very strong implication that these two characters had slept together. It was a little bit of a relief to me.

Speaker 1 I thought, okay, they're not pussyfooting around this.

Speaker 1 I mean, I couldn't think of the very last time that it was clear that two characters in a big Tempo movie had hooked up.

Speaker 2 I'm happy for them

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 he turns into a scarecrow at the end, and as far as I know, has no genitals.

Speaker 2 Madison, what do you think audiences are going to walk away from this movie feeling good about?

Speaker 3 The moments in Wicked for Good that touched me are the ones that are these like intimate little moments between Ariana and Cynthia, who do have this undeniable chemistry.

Speaker 3 And that is really the love story that this entire franchise is about, right? The relationship between these two women.

Speaker 3 And it's so clear, even it's easy to become cynical watching the never-ending green and pink press tour and feel that this is a little contrived.

Speaker 3 But there's this scene, it's actually in the trailer, where

Speaker 3 they're talking, and Cynthia says something like, Just look at me,

Speaker 2 not with your eyes,

Speaker 2 but theirs.

Speaker 3 Look at me, not with your eyes, with theirs.

Speaker 3 And you can just like, in these micro-movements of her like perfect little eyebrows, you can just the emotions that Ariana Grande is able to telegraph and the feelings she has towards Cynthia and also towards Alphaba.

Speaker 3 This is a show that is deeply special and important to Ariana Grande and has been since she was a child. You can feel that sitting in your seat.

Speaker 1 And I think that is actually sort of a big takeaway that people will have, not just from this second movie, but from both of these movies, which is Cynthia and Ariana are delivering something that is remarkably human-sized, given the epic scale of this project.

Speaker 1 And they're not afraid to play these characters very real and intimate and small when they need to, which I think makes the big moments feel even bigger.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 it is the human moments. It's not the animal moments.
And that's my point. Like, we do need to.

Speaker 2 Oh, man, we walk right into that one.

Speaker 1 Humans are animals, too.

Speaker 2 Do Do you own a pet?

Speaker 2 I have a dog and I love it. Tracks.
I love him very much. Trax.
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 I'm just saying, someone who owns a pet

Speaker 3 subjugating an animal.

Speaker 2 We treat that dog goddamn well, okay?

Speaker 1 Gilbert, I'm going to need to know your thoughts on Zootopia, too.

Speaker 2 All right. All right.

Speaker 2 We are going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about why this franchise has done so well, is continuing to do so well in what is, by all accounts, a pretty dark time for Hollywood.

Speaker 2 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 All right, we're going to talk about Hollywood right now. Hollywood has not been doing great this fall.
I don't think that's a secret.

Speaker 2 The industry, I think, has been struggling to get people into theaters for years now, certainly since the pandemic.

Speaker 2 And we have seen the past few months this trend of movies with people who at least used to be regarded as movie stars really sort of bombing at the box office. You're not making a dent in any way.

Speaker 2 I think I saw the stat that if you adjust for inflation, which we always must do. I really don't understand what that means.

Speaker 2 And exclude 2020 because of the pandemic, this October's box office, this is only one month, but this October's box office was the lowest monthly total on record ever.

Speaker 2 Cal, I'd love for you to talk through

Speaker 2 what is happening in Hollywood right now and like where does Wicked fit in?

Speaker 1 It's been rough, man.

Speaker 1 Like you said, yeah, a lot of these films have been underperforming, no matter the star power.

Speaker 1 You know, there's a really lovely Channing Tatum Kirsten Dunstromedy called Roofman that came out that I think back in the day would have made at least $60, $70 million, would have been a word-of-mouth hit, and people just simply didn't go.

Speaker 1 There are success stories this year. You know, you have Sinners, one battle after another, weapons.

Speaker 1 But in two of those three cases, what Sinners and One Battle did very effectively, in addition to just being good movies,

Speaker 1 is they felt like events. They felt like you have to see it in this premium format.

Speaker 1 And if you don't see Sinners in IMAX 70 or One Battle After Another in VistaVision, are you really doing it right, bro? Like, you've got to go see it in the right format.

Speaker 1 And that creates the feeling of this actually is special. This is a particular thing that you ought to do.

Speaker 1 And a small movie can feel like an event, but you've got to make sure that people feel: if I don't see this, I won't be part of the cultural conversation, that it will move past me.

Speaker 1 So there's stakes to going to the film. And Wicked has that.
You know that the cultural conversation is going to be about Wicked during, you know, these few weeks. So you've got to go at some point.

Speaker 2 One of the other things that a movie can have, to state the obvious,

Speaker 2 is a connection to IP, which is a phrase that we've used. Intellectual property, franchises, pre-existing, sort of already baked

Speaker 2 lore or names that, you know, sort of do half the work already to getting people in theaters. Wicked is based on a very long chain of IP.

Speaker 2 It was never called IP back then, but you have a book that came out in 1900, and then you had a movie musical that came out in 1939, still one of the most famous American movies ever made, The Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 And then you have this book in 1995 by Gregory Maguire. You have this musical in 2003.
And now you have these two movies.

Speaker 2 Kyle, I'm wondering how much of the success of these two films you attribute to the fact that this is, you know, at least in America, sort of a story that's been around for so long and this is a part of it.

Speaker 1 The OZIP? Exactly. You know, this is an interesting test case because obviously I think that when we grew up, and I would wager most of the listeners, The Wizard of Oz was ubiquitous.

Speaker 1 You would always see it on television.

Speaker 2 It was, you know, every Thanksgiving at Grandma's house. It aired

Speaker 2 at least once a year for more than 30 years.

Speaker 1 Certainly felt like one of the top three most famous movies ever made, and probably one of the top three movies most watched.

Speaker 1 You could pretty much count on anybody you met having watched that movie at some point. I'm not sure that that is true of the generation that is coming up.

Speaker 1 Would a 10-year-old have seen The Wizard Wizard of Oz as many times as we would have by 10, or would a 10-year-old have seen it at all?

Speaker 1 You know, they're not watching movies that are ubiquitous on TV because they're more prone to watch a Roblox playthrough on YouTube. So I don't know that.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm saying that this might be an interesting case of the tale wagging the dog in the future that people will be coming to The Wizard of Oz predominantly through Wicked

Speaker 1 and not the other way around.

Speaker 1 And it's going to be particularly interesting because Wicked for Good, the second film, really relies on how well you know the Wizard of Oz, particularly the movie version of that,

Speaker 1 because the characters are getting into places a lot as implied. And I don't know if young kids today are going to get all those references.

Speaker 3 One thought, just in terms of IP, yellow brick roadlocks.

Speaker 3 I think this is the tie-in we've been looking for.

Speaker 3 I think that's right, but I also think there's a possibility where that makes Wicked for Good more enjoyable to those viewers, because I think if you have read the original book, you've seen the film a gajillion times, and you come to Wicked, the twists at the ending are quite obvious, right?

Speaker 3 It's not really a surprise. You go, oh, yeah, I saw that coming a mile away.

Speaker 3 But if you can't see it coming a mile away, I can imagine the ending of this film would be that much more satisfying if, you know, Scratchy-faced Scarecrow Man comes as a genuine surprise to you.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I guess I was surprised that again, I have listened to the show and I've seen a scratchy bootleg.

Speaker 2 I guess I forgot how much the second act really ties into The Wizard of Oz, which is a film maybe like Kyle, maybe like you. I've seen dozens and dozens of times, either in full or in part.

Speaker 2 And I just side note, if you are a parent and you have not shown your child The Wizard of Oz already,

Speaker 2 shame on you. And you should do that immediately.
It is one of the great things that this country has ever produced.

Speaker 1 How did your son react when you showed him?

Speaker 2 He loved it.

Speaker 1 Was it not post-wicked?

Speaker 2 It was not post-wicked. I think we showed it to him.
Did you scare him?

Speaker 2 Yes, there were a couple words that did. It scared the guy.

Speaker 2 Kids are going to be okay. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 musical

Speaker 2 is scary.

Speaker 2 There are lots of things that are... weird about that movie and sort of offbeat, but it is beautiful and it is something that everyone should experience.

Speaker 2 So please show your children The Wizard of Oz, either before or after going to see this movie. This has been a public service announcement.

Speaker 2 So Wicked for Good, as we said, it's sort of pitched to be one of the top-grossing movies of the year.

Speaker 2 And Kyle, I'm wondering what is missing in movies that this movie is providing to viewers, providing in the marketplace?

Speaker 2 It feels like it's sort of filling a hole that desperately wants to be filled in some way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think there's a really incredible contrast that can be drawn here.

Speaker 1 At a time when it's hard to get almost every demographic to the movies, you have one demographic, young girls, who will not just go to the movies, but will go over and over.

Speaker 1 That repeat audience is why wicked became such a phenomenon, and you can trace that back to movies like Barbie,

Speaker 1 even all the way back to Titanic.

Speaker 1 That if women really like something, as they do with, you know, K-pop Demon Hunters or Wednesday, they will watch it multiple times, they will discuss it with their friends, now they will make fan edits.

Speaker 1 You know, the bounds of their fandom and obsession are ultimately very lucrative in a way where I'm not sure that we actually have enough product coming out to satisfy, you know, probably the most loyal fan base there is, the most loyal demographic.

Speaker 1 So much of what we're seeing and what we're seeing not work is aimed at either young men or older audiences who simply aren't showing up.

Speaker 1 And then you have this slice of the demographic pie where they're not just showing up, they're showing up once, twice, three times, four times, and bringing their friends.

Speaker 3 So what he's saying is, could you hurry up with Practical Magic 2? We're waiting, we're ready, I've got 22 bucks ad nauseum.

Speaker 1 Practical Magic 2, you've got Devil Where's Prada 2 coming out, but then also, let's make more properties that I think young women want to feel like they've stumbled upon these things themselves, that they are part of the ground floor in making these things a hit.

Speaker 2 Ladybird. I think my mother's ears just perked up about

Speaker 2 an hour and a half away when she heard you say Practical Magic 2. There's no one who is more excited for this film.
Tell her to call me.

Speaker 2 Madison, I don't know if you would call yourself an ASEAN, but you have been part of a subset of this fandom from the beginning before there was ever.

Speaker 3 I'm trying not to claim like stolen green valor, but I think we've established that I am a longtime fan of this.

Speaker 2 Okay, okay. I don't want to speak for you.

Speaker 3 You should want to speak for the animals.

Speaker 2 No one should speak for the animals. What was the...

Speaker 2 Can you tell us, like, what has the fandom for this been like? You know, what was it like back when it was just on Broadway?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Wicked has always been an extremely online musical because if you think about it, Wicked the novel, boil it down, it's fanfic, which is a deeply online genre.

Speaker 3 And it's also quite obviously a story about being othered, whether that's as a queer person or a person of color or really anyone who has any experience of feeling not part of the in-group can watch this show and really connect to it.

Speaker 3 And those are the communities that historically congregate in online spaces, right? And that's chat rooms, rooms, forums, boards.

Speaker 3 So it makes perfect sense to me that the groups of people with whom this show resonates, present company included, then found themselves looking for the community who was also feeling that resonance, and we found it online.

Speaker 3 Broadway also for many is an online experience. If you don't live here, if you can't afford to see an exorbitantly expensive show, that leaves you with the internet.

Speaker 3 You said you watched a scratchy bootleg. A lot of people experience Broadway online through, and I'm not suggesting anyone film a Broadway show while they're sitting in it, but

Speaker 3 do not do that. It's rude, but people have and people do.
And so for many fans of this show, getting to see it only happens

Speaker 3 through a camera that was snuck into a theater and then uploaded to YouTube.

Speaker 2 Okay, I am still new to this world. So what are some of the ways in which fans like sort of engage with each other over Wicked?

Speaker 3 I mean, some of my favorite Wicked rabbit holes are there are entire compilations online of

Speaker 3 nights where the flying mechanism didn't work, no flying nights where Alphabet doesn't get off the ground, and so you've just kind of got you know, Idina Menzell or whoever's standing in the middle of the stage at the Gershwin holding a broom on the ground, getting louder and louder, but not going up.

Speaker 3 Oh no, and then there's also my favorite compilations are um

Speaker 3 people who are hyper-analytical about the riffs in the show, so like the

Speaker 3 incredibly small differences between how actresses who have played these roles sing them.

Speaker 3 People get very obsessive about who their favorites are, being able to identify them within one note. It's an incredibly fun game online.
I highly recommend if you

Speaker 3 haven't spent some time in this corner of the internet, I'll do that over there.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 We We don't have anything this year approaching holding space, but

Speaker 2 still, once again, this has been a press tour, a marketing cycle that has been pretty intense. Madison, I know you have wanted to use green deodorant for your entire life.

Speaker 2 What is it like as someone who has been a wicked fan for so long just to see sort of the overwhelming sort of wave of wicked stuff out there?

Speaker 3 I mean, it makes it, frankly, easier to tune out, right?

Speaker 3 The same marketers who are in that room trying to figure out how to have their holding space moment should probably know that I think at this point, wicked fans who are going to go see this movie a couple of times or feel very strongly about the musical, and I'm not going to buy the pink ketchup.

Speaker 3 Like, I don't need the eyeshadow palette.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to get the Crocs.

Speaker 3 I'm making all these up. I don't know if they exist, just to be clear for our legal team who's listening.

Speaker 3 It just becomes pink and green noise that one tunes out entirely.

Speaker 3 It's not lost on me that the only breakthrough moment of this film's press cycle is actually, and it sort of ties into the film, like quite violent and dark.

Speaker 3 It was a man who rushed Ariana Grande on a carpet in Singapore, and Cynthia sort of like steps in to protect her.

Speaker 3 It's this quite frightening moment, and that's, I think, the one moment of the press cycle that has really broken through the noise this time, less so the pink and green ketchup.

Speaker 1 Well, not to sound like a capitalist shill, but I think that, you know, for people who are going through their first round with Wicked, I think maybe they do want some of those things.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm surprised when I spoke to people for the first movie, friends of mine who I consider to be, you know, somewhat difficult to impress when it comes to film.

Speaker 1 And they fanned out so hard about Wicked. And I, you know, I found it somewhat out of character.
And then I would find out that they owned the Grimmery when they were 13, you know?

Speaker 2 Great book.

Speaker 3 Still are they buying the ketchup?

Speaker 2 So have we reached peak wicked? Like, what's next for this?

Speaker 2 It is, I've been sort of hesitant to call it a franchise because it's only two films, but it is part of, as we said, the sort of greater wicked or greater Wizard of Oz,

Speaker 2 decades-long sort of intellectual property. Like, what could be next for this?

Speaker 1 What's the afterlife of Wicked?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, look, there's the lesson that I hope Hollywood would learn, which is to make more properties that are aimed at and for and that can empower young women.

Speaker 1 And then there's the lesson that I think Hollywood will learn, which is we should make more wicked. I expect more spin-offs.
I do think...

Speaker 2 Spin-off films.

Speaker 1 Spin-off films are spin-off anything. You know, animated prequels, some sort of shiz university spin-off.

Speaker 2 There are several other books.

Speaker 1 Yes. I mean, there's a lot that you could mine.

Speaker 1 But I think that

Speaker 1 this film ends in a way. where if they made a standalone Glinda movie, you could see how they're setting that up.
And I'm curious to see if they'll follow through on that.

Speaker 1 Obviously, you know, they'd have to come up with songs and experiences that don't exist in the Broadway show, but they've already done that to some extent in these movies.

Speaker 1 And I think they feel empowered to keep doing it as long as Ariana wants to.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 We have talked so much, possibly too much, about Wicked. Madison's making a face.
We are going to.

Speaker 3 That is just my face.

Speaker 2 Take a break, and when we come back, we're going to end this episode as we do every week with a little game. Goat Hater.

Speaker 2 I love my dog.

Speaker 7 We all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair.
Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.

Speaker 3 Ouch.

Speaker 2 Could have done better.

Speaker 7 Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.
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Speaker 2 Okay, Madison and Kyle, we're going to wrap up this episode as we wrap up every episode with a game. And today, we're going to set off down the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City.

Speaker 2 Are you two ready? Very. Let's go.
Do you have your Ruby Slippers?

Speaker 1 Well, for purposes of copyright, they are silver.

Speaker 2 Do you have your little dog? And your little dog, too. As well.

Speaker 2 I've got three rounds for you, so please put your hands on your buzzers. Are you ready? Let's do it.
Let's go. All right, we're off to see the wizard.

Speaker 2 Round one is called If I Only Had a Brain. The answers to all of the questions in this round have a theme.
Buzz in first with the right answer, and you will get a point.

Speaker 2 Dr. Jonathan Crane is the alter ego of what fear-toxin-spewing Batman villain portrayed on screen by Killian Murphy in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.
Kyle.

Speaker 1 The Scarecrow.

Speaker 2 Scarecrow. That is correct.
This British theater legend performed in his own plays, Blight Spirits, Private Lives, and Present Laughter.

Speaker 1 Kyle. Noel Coward.

Speaker 2 Noel Coward. That is correct.

Speaker 2 This filmmaking icon and one-time Oscar winner made his first short film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn, while a student at Morehouse College.

Speaker 2 Kyle. Spike Lee.
Spike Lee. Kyle.

Speaker 2 Sorry.

Speaker 2 Busted. Spike Lee.
That is correct. Slats, Jackie, Tanner, and Leo, all of whom have appeared in the logo for the Hollywood studio MGM, are what kind of animal? Madison.
A lion.

Speaker 2 A lion, that is correct. In 2011, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson teamed up to bring what Belgian comic book character, an intrepid reporter with a dog named Snowy, to the big screen?

Speaker 1 That would be Tintin.

Speaker 2 Tin Tin. That is correct.

Speaker 2 This Hollywood actress met her husband while auditioning for the cable guy and went on to star in three of his films alongside the couple's two daughters, Maude and Iris.

Speaker 2 Kyle.

Speaker 1 Leslie Mann.

Speaker 2 Leslie Mann.

Speaker 2 Correct. To recap those answers.
Scarecrow, coward, lead, lion, tin, tin, man.

Speaker 2 I think you get the theme.

Speaker 2 It's lost on me.

Speaker 1 Okay, great.

Speaker 2 There's maybe no moment in musical theater that comes right from the heart as much as that final note at the end of Defying Gravity, the Act One, Film One finale in Wicked.

Speaker 2 I'm going to play you a recording of a notable person performing that moment, and you tell me who the person is. And there's a note for Madison: these are not obscure Broadway actors.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Madison. Adina Menzel.
Adina Menzel. That is correct.
All right. Next.

Speaker 1 Kyle. I think that might be Kiki Palmer.

Speaker 2 It is not Kiki Palmer.

Speaker 3 She does a good one, though.

Speaker 1 She does. I'm waiting for that one.

Speaker 2 Madison, do you want to give it a try? Trish Paytas.

Speaker 2 I don't know who that is. This, however, is Sabrina Carpenter.
Oh, that was Sabrina Carpenter.

Speaker 2 Next.

Speaker 2 Madison. Cynthia Arivo.
Cynthia Arrivo. That is correct.
Next one.

Speaker 2 Anyone? Is that Ben Platt? That is not Ben Platt medicine. Kyle.
No clue. That is Paul Mescow.
What?

Speaker 2 Do you remember Blicken? Oh, my God, yeah.

Speaker 1 As a phenomenon.

Speaker 2 Who made him do that? That was from Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 2 Okay, we have a couple more here. Next.

Speaker 3 I didn't think I was going to win because

Speaker 1 Kyle. Well, that is Kiki Palmer.

Speaker 2 That is definitely Kiki Palmer. Very good.

Speaker 2 Final one.

Speaker 2 I hate myself trying to hang like Madison. Harvey Feierstein? It is not Harvey Feierstein.
That is Hank Azaria

Speaker 2 as his iconic character, Professor John IQ Nerdlebaum Frank Jr. from The Simpsons.

Speaker 1 Sure, obviously.

Speaker 2 Professor Frank.

Speaker 2 Final round, round three,

Speaker 2 titled, What Makes the Muskrat Guard His Musk? Courage.

Speaker 2 This round is going to take some guts. I'm going to give you a category, and you have to tell me how many items in that category you can name.

Speaker 2 Whoever says they can name more is going to get a chance to try. Succeed, and you'll get a point.
Fail, and your opponent gets the point.

Speaker 2 Kyle, you are currently in the lead, so you are going to go first.

Speaker 2 The first category is songs from Wicked for Good. How many items can you think you can name in that category?

Speaker 1 Oh my God, this is going to be humiliating.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say three.

Speaker 2 Madison, how many do you think you can name? Four.

Speaker 1 I definitely can't do five.

Speaker 2 Madison, you picked one more than Kyle, which is kind of a cheap way to do this. Cowardly Lion, baby.
You have to name four songs from Wicked for Good.

Speaker 2 For Good.

Speaker 2 That is correct.

Speaker 3 The Girl in the Bubble.

Speaker 2 That is correct.

Speaker 3 No Good Deed.

Speaker 2 That is also correct.

Speaker 3 As long as you're mine.

Speaker 2 That is also correct.

Speaker 2 Keep going. Just going.
Just keep going.

Speaker 2 Keep going.

Speaker 3 Sentimental Man Reprise, The Wicked Witch of the East.

Speaker 3 Wonderful. That new one they wrote for Cynthia about the Yellowbrick Road that I don't remember the name of.

Speaker 1 I believe it's called No Place Like Home.

Speaker 3 Oh, okay, great. No Place Like Home, the one on the gaping mall of the Yellowbrick Road hole.

Speaker 2 All right, you proved your bona fides. You won that round.
Very good. Thank you.
I would have been disappointed if you hadn't. Yeah, same.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Next category is movies that take place in Oz.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Madison, how many movies that take place in Oz do you think you can name?

Speaker 2 Three.

Speaker 2 That is so low. Kyle, how many movies that take place in Oz do you think you can name? Five.
Madison, you can't do six since this is your move?

Speaker 3 Absolutely not. Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. It's good to know oneself.
Kyle, you're on.

Speaker 1 Well, obviously, Wicked and Wicked for Good.

Speaker 2 That's good.

Speaker 1 The Wizard of Oz, we're at three already. Return to Oz if you want to really freak your kids out.
That is a weird one. And then Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful.

Speaker 2 That is correct. Very good.
Do you want to keep going?

Speaker 3 And does Australia count?

Speaker 2 What is that?

Speaker 1 Oz. The land of Oz.

Speaker 2 Starring the boy from Oz? Yeah, exactly. Great.
I'm in. I'm back.
What does that count? I'm back in. Kyle, you won that category.

Speaker 2 Very good. We are down to our final category in our final round.
This is a big one. Musicals that were nominated for best picture.

Speaker 2 How many musicals that were nominated for best picture, Kyle, do you think you can name?

Speaker 1 Oh man, nominated for best picture. That's interesting because they didn't have to win.

Speaker 2 Correct. That's what that means.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to go with five conservatively.

Speaker 2 Like you guys, these are low numbers. Madison, how many musicals nominated for best picture do you think you can name?

Speaker 2 It's final round.

Speaker 2 Six? Dear God, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 Kyle, do you think you can name more than six?

Speaker 1 I want to watch Madison do it.

Speaker 2 Oh, boy, that is cruel.

Speaker 2 Also, hilarious. Madison, you're up.
You have to name six movies that were nominated for Best Picture.

Speaker 3 Lame Is.

Speaker 2 That is correct.

Speaker 3 West Side Story.

Speaker 2 That is correct.

Speaker 3 Wicked Part One.

Speaker 3 That is correct. La La La Land.

Speaker 2 That is correct.

Speaker 2 In the Heights.

Speaker 2 That is

Speaker 2 correct.

Speaker 1 Wow. Tough break.

Speaker 2 All right. You were so close.
You did very, very poorly well.

Speaker 2 Kyle, you're going to get the point. That was a good strategy on your part.
But I just, I want to hear you name some more.

Speaker 1 I'll add two more to those. Okay.
Chicago, which one?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the Spielberg West Side story, which was also

Speaker 1 paywall.

Speaker 2 It counts.

Speaker 2 Let's end this round by asking very quickly, what's your favorite movie musical?

Speaker 2 Oh, man. Hello, Dolly.
Hello, Dolly. That's good.

Speaker 1 You know, honestly, for me, the sound of music.

Speaker 2 The sound of music. Mine is My Fair Lady.
And it pains me to say this, but literally all three of the movies that we just mentioned were nominated for Best Picture.

Speaker 2 Neither of you guessed them, which is fine. Nobody's perfect, so they say.
The more perfect competitor today, however, is Kyle. Kyle, you have won.

Speaker 2 You flew all the way from Los Angeles to win this game, to win an actual prize.

Speaker 1 Oh, is it a bounty of gold bricks?

Speaker 2 It is not. That would not have fit in this cheap tote bag that I have here.
Okay. However, the thing inside is even cheaper than the tote bag.
It is a plastic trophy with my face on it. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 We call it the Gilby.

Speaker 1 I'm treasuring this. This is incredible.

Speaker 2 Congratulations. I don't know what they would say it is.
It is gold. It is gold.
Wow. Well done.

Speaker 2 Congratulations, Kyle. Thank you.
That's so nice of you to say, Madison.

Speaker 2 Thank you both for coming on. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And I feel like Madison and I had a nice, good Alpha Buglinda rivalry that deepened into true friendship.

Speaker 2 Put your finger out again so she could hold it.

Speaker 3 This is where we do the musical number, right? I was told there would be a musical number. That's why I showed up.

Speaker 2 Madison, thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Take us out with a riff, Madison.

Speaker 2 That was gold.

Speaker 2 This episode was produced by Kate Lopresti with help from Alex Baron, who's also our quiz master, Luke Vanderplug, and Dahlia Haddad. It was edited by Wendy Dorr and engineered by Rowan Nemisto.

Speaker 2 Original music by Dan Powell, Alicia Ba Etoup, and Diane Wong. Special thanks to Paula Schuman.
Thanks for listening. See you next week.

Speaker 7 We all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair.
Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.

Speaker 2 Ouch. Could have done better.

Speaker 7 Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.
Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Learn more at schwab dot com.