Fans Are Confused About Wicked's Reported 2.5-Hour Runtime

It’s nearly Wicked season. Coming Nov. 22, the film covers the first half of the two-act Broadway show. With an all-star cast (including Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda), the movie is highly anticipated among fans. And yet, the film’s reported runtime — a whopping two hours and 40 minutes — has left fans feeling conflicted.

According to Fandango, Wicked is nearly three hours long. For fans, this seems like a stretch, especially considering the play has a total runtime of two hours and 45 minutes (including a 15-minute intermission), and the movie seemingly only covers the plot of the first half.

Back in April 2022, director Jon M. Chu shared the announcement on X, formerly called Twitter. “As we prepared this production over the last year, it became increasingly clear that it would be impossible to wrestle the story of Wicked into a single film without doing some real damage to it. 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 all for so many years,” he wrote at the time.

“So we decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one Wicked movie but TWO!!!!” Chu continued. “With more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys of these beloved characters.”

But fans are still lost on how a film — one that isn’t even a full adaptation — could be longer than the stage production. “do we know for sure that wicked is a part 1? maybe they changed their mind and forgot to tell us,” one user joked on X.

It’s become a running joke ever since the reported runtime was revealed on Sept. 27. Taking to X, another fan wrote, “How absolute F*CK is the movie Wicked longer than the broadway musical that it is based on? And that’s only part 1?!?!”

While some fans are quipping about the movie’s runtime, others are building theories about what this could mean for the second film. Some think that Part 1 will cover the entire musical (hence the lengthy runtime), leaving Part 2 completely open for an extension of the story.

Others are hopeful this means a new direction for the love story at the center of the plot.

There is *some* truth to this joke. Back in May, Kristin Chenoweth who played Glinda in the original Broadway production told Us Weekly, “The love story is really between the two girls. It’s about their bond.”

Other fans think that Part 2 could be a remake of the Wizard Of Oz, considering Wicked was originally made as a twist on the original 1939 film.

The film premieres in the United States on Nov. 22, so fans have a bit to wait before they’ll know for sure if any of these theories hold any merit.