🚨🚨🚨 Warning: This story contains spoilers for “Wicked,” both the movie and the musical.

The beloved story of ‘Wicked’ just made its big screen debut, and fans of the onstage musical may notice some changes.

Both the film and musical versions of ‘Wicked’ are based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel about the friendship between Elphaba and Glinda – two witches popularized by the ‘Wizard of Oz’.

The film adaptation of “Wicked” is split into two parts. The first film, which hit theaters on November 22, follows the events and songs from Act 1 of the musical. “Wicked: Part 2” is expected in November 2025.

Director Jon M. Chu tells TODAY.com that he approached the making of the film adaptation from “a very specific perspective.”

“I first saw the musical in San Francisco before it hit Broadway,” he says, referring to the musical’s 2003 pilot performances before it opened at the Gershwin Theater. “Those are kind of core memories of the moment when Glinda ends up in the bubble and during ‘Defying Gravity’, ‘What Is This Feeling?’ – these things stayed with me all these years.

“So I feel like I’m channeling the first time I see it,” Chu adds.

Composer Stephen Schwartz and “Wicked” screenwriter Winnie Holzman say that when the show opened on Broadway in October 2003, they “couldn’t imagine being in November 2003 and having survived until then” — let alone a film adaptation.

But once they reached November 2003 and the show proved a success, “we knew it would eventually become a movie,” Schwartz says.

“So basically for 20 years, especially Winnie and myself, we’ve been talking about ‘Well, in the movie, what if we do this? Maybe we should try that?” says Schwartz. “We thought about it for a long time, but what was most important to us was that we told our story in the film.”

The first “Wicked” film is faithful to Act 1 of the musical, right down to the soundtrack. No songs were cut, and with the exception of one song “expansion” – as composer Stephen Schwartz puts it – the songs are faithful to the original Broadway cast recording.

But there are some minor changes that dedicated ‘Wicked’ fans may notice.

Chu notes that even if what happens on screen isn’t exactly what happened on stage, his goal was “to recreate those moments that I felt at the time.”

“What it felt like was happening is what I tried to do in the movie,” he says.

Here’s what you need to know about the differences between the ‘Wicked’ movie and the musical.

The length

Despite being only part of the beloved musical, the film runs over two and a half hours, almost as long as the entire Broadway production.

“This one movie is longer than the first act,” says Schwartz. “It’s the equivalent of the first act in terms of storytelling, but it’s as long as our entire show.”

Holzman says Chu was “very confident” in the decision to split the film in two. Once that happened, she says she had the “freedom” to slow down moments that might have happened quickly in the musical.

“There were so many moments that we…really wanted to capture and—” Holzman says.

“Give them a chance to breathe,” Schwartz adds.

Trying to fit the entire “Wicked” musical into one film would have been a “burden,” Schwartz says.

“It was great not to have to constantly feel like, ‘Oh, we just don’t have time,’ with every musical moment, every scene,” he says. “Once that burden was lifted, it was very inspiring.”

Both Schwartz and Holzman wrote new songs and scenes for part 1 that did not make it into the final version.

“We tried to be very careful that whatever we expanded was additive and not padded,” he says.

An extensive backstory for Elphaba and Nessarose

In both the musical ‘Wicked’ and the film, Elphaba’s backstory is explored in the opening song ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’. The song, sung by Glinda, shows how Elphaba’s mother drank a green elixir before having an affair, which ultimately led to her baby arriving with a tan. After Elphaba is born, her father wants nothing more to do with her.

But the film takes a while to show what her childhood was like. After her birth, Elphaba’s nanny, a bear named Dulcibear, raises the child and promises to care for her. Her relationship with her younger sister Nessarose is also explored in more depth.

“There are things that pass by very quickly, like the two sisters,” Holzman says of the musical “Wicked.” “When you first meet them, if you blink, you’ll miss their conversation.”

In the movie, there is a scene where Elphaba is bullied as a child because of her appearance. It also establishes a loving and protective relationship with Nessarose by showing Elphaba fighting back after the children make her sister cry.

Nessarose, played by Marissa Bode, also asserts independence in the film. Bode, the first actor to play Nessarose to use a wheelchair in real life, says her character goes to Shiz University to be alone and “prove to yourself that you can do it, even though you already know you can . says Bode.

In the musical, Elphaba arrives in Shiz as an enrolled student under strict orders to care for her sister. However, in the film, Elphaba is not enrolled and only remains in school after accidentally using her powers, which attracts the attention of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).

More information about the Grimmerie

Although most of the songs from the movie soundtrack ‘Wicked’ are the same as the musical, ‘One Short Day’ has a notable addition.

The song follows Glinda and Elphaba as they arrive in the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz. The film version of “One Short Day” features new scores sung by, much to the delight of Broadway fans, Idina Menzel, who played Elphaba, and Kristin Chenoweth, the original Glinda.

In the cameo, they jokingly compete for the spotlight and sing some of their iconic riffs.

Menzel and Chenoweth act as part of Emerald City’s player base, taking on the roles of legendary Elders who have written their spells in a book known as the Grimmerie.

The Grimmerie ultimately becomes the key to Elphaba unlocking her powers and turning into a witch, and the film provides more details about how this led to the wizard taking power.

According to the prophetic song of the Magi, “in Oz’s darkest hour,” a powerful figure with the ability to read the Grimmerie will come along and guide Oz. That person eventually became the Wizard after landing in Oz via a hot air balloon. Now he can Actually read the Grimmerie? That’s another story.

‘Wizard of Oz’ Easter eggs

“Wicked” is specifically a prequel story to “The Wizard of Oz,” but Part 1 of the film provides more Easter eggs for L. Frank Baum’s story and the 1939 film.

While both the film and the musical open with the stirring musical number ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’, set after the death of the Wicked Witch of the West, the film places the story firmly in time with ‘The Wizard of Oz’ .

The first scene of the film features the voice of Ariana Grande’s Glinda, who declares the Wicked Witch of the West dead. The camera pans to a black witch’s hat sitting on top of a pool of water, a reference to how the witch melted in the 1939 film after Dorothy threw a bucket of water at her.

‘We’re entering a crime scene. We’re not falling into a big musical number, we’re falling into a puddle of water,” says Chu. “For me that was very important to take us back to the scene of the crime, the place where we last left Oz.”

From there, Oz comes fully into focus. Viewers see someone escape from a castle on horseback. Then the camera pans to the yellow brick road, as the figures of Dorothy and her companions follow the path to the Emerald City.

The focus then shifts to Munchkinland, and the opening notes of “No One Mourns the Wicked” sound.

In another “Wizard of Oz” tie-in, the film changes a scene to include poppy flowers. After Dr. Dillamond has been removed from his teaching position, a new teacher brings in a lion cub to teach a lesson on caging. Elphaba, noticing that the cub is shaking, casts a spell in the musical to cause chaos and help save the animal.

But in the film, Elphaba accidentally uses poppy flowers to put everyone in the class – except herself and Jonathan Bailey’s Fiyero – to sleep. They then rescue the cub and release it into the wild.

The poppies seem to foreshadow a scene from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in which the four main characters – Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion – travel through a field of the same flowers. In the story, both Dorothy and the Lion fall asleep.

Later, once Elphaba and Glinda are in Oz, the Wizard shows them his vision of the city, including a long winding road. He goes through several options for the color of the path, and Glinda finally suggests making the stone path yellow.