Connect with us

Entertainment

‘Wicked’ will make its streaming debut on New Year’s Eve, with deleted and extended scenes

Published

on

There’s no place like home… to watch the “Wicked” movie.

Universal Pictures, the studio behind the hit film, announced on Thursday that “Wicked” will be available to buy or rent on December 31 on digital streaming platforms including Prime Video and Apple TV.

The streaming release will also include a plethora of bonus content, including a sing-along version of the film, behind-the-scenes featurettes, commentary from director Jon M. Chu and the film’s stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, plus several deleted and extended scenes, according to a news release.

Among the bonus content is a 40-minute behind-the-scenes featurette that “celebrates the film’s transformative on-screen magic,” and bonus clips that will give viewers a look at the special effects that brought the large-scale sets to life.

“Wicked” stars Erivo, Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Bowen Yang, Peter Dinklage, Marissa Bode, “Bridgerton” star Jonathan Bailey and Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh.

The nearly three-hour-long epic is the first installment of Chu’s two-part cinematic adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical that recounts events in the magical land of Oz that occurred before Dorothy’s arrival. The musical, which opened on Broadway in 2003, was itself adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch.”

The movie premiered in theaters on November 22 and has raked in over $580 million at the global box office to date, also nabbing the third highest-grossing opening weekend of 2024 behind “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Inside Out 2.”

“Wicked” has been nominated for four Golden Globes including best motion picture – musical or comedy, and recognition in lead and supporting acting categories for Erivo and Grande, respectively.

The second installment will be titled “Wicked: For Good,” in a nod to one of the original musical’s popular songs, and will premiere in theaters on November 21, 2025.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Entertainment

Even before the LA fires, Californians fled for ‘climate havens’

Published

on

By

Christina Welch still remembers what the sky looked like the day a wildfire came within 2 miles (3.2 km) of her Santa Rosa, California, home.
It was the Tubbs fire of 2017, the most destructive in California history at the time. Ms Welch’s neighbour woke her in the morning, and told her to grab her belongings and get out. When Ms Welch opened the door, ashes were falling from the sky and smoke filled the air.
Then, in 2019, the Kincade wildfire forced her parents to evacuate for five days.
It was the final push for Ms Welch. After advice from a friend, she packed her belongings and drove across the country to her new hometown: Duluth, Minnesota.
“It was just the culmination of all of it,” the 42-year-old said. “There’s only so many times that I was going to go through every fall of worrying about what is going to set on fire, if I was going to lose a house.”
Ms Welch is one of several people who has left California in recent years because of the frequency of extreme weather, even before the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history killed 28 people this month.
Climate change has made the grasses and shrubs that are fuelling the Los Angeles fires more vulnerable to burning, scientists say.
Climate’s ‘whiplash’ linked to raging LA fires
California is naturally prone to fires, but scientists believe that a warming world is increasing the conditions conducive to longer fire seasons and larger burned areas in the western US.
Just this week, a new, fast-moving wildfire broke out in Los Angeles County, north-west of the city, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate a region already reeling from destruction. Trump plans to visit Southern California on Friday to witness the devastation from the blazes.

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Would you make a good Traitor? Take our quiz

Published

on

By

The latest series of The Traitors is coming to an end, after weeks of wild accusations, wilder betrayals and Claudia Winkleman’s devious looks-to-camera.
Many of us like to think we could handle the pressures and skullduggery of being a traitor in the remote Scottish castle. But could you really make it to the end undetected?
Work through our scenarios – from sitting at the roundtable with Claudia to rowing across an icy loch – to find out if you’ve got what it takes to be a treacherous mastermind, or whether you are far too faithful for that.
Quiz compiled by: Steven McIntosh, Helen Bushby, Yasmin Rufo, Rosemary McCabe, Jonathan Holmes

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Musical about trans drug boss leads Oscar nominations

Published

on

By

Netflix musical Emilia Pérez leads this year’s Oscars nominations, with Wicked also among the top contenders.
Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican drug lord who changes gender, has 13 nominations in total – although one of its stars, Selena Gomez, missed out.
Wicked received 10 nominations – including nods for British actress Cynthia Erivo and her co-star Ariana Grande.
Three-and-a-half-hour epic The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, also has 10 nominations, while Demi Moore has the first Oscar nomination of her career

Continue Reading

Trending