Wicked’s For Good Hits Harder If You Know This First
Wicked: For Good is set to storm the box office, but don’t walk in cold—under Jon M. Chu, this is the second half of the 2003 stage phenomenon by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, so make sure you’ve seen the first film before you take your seat.
Quick heads up before you buy that ticket: Wicked: For Good is not the same fizzy, crowd-pleasing vibe as Part 1. It looks like a box office steamroller, sure, but the mood shifts. On purpose.
What this sequel actually is
Wicked: For Good is director Jon M. Chu delivering the second half of the 2003 stage musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. That musical is loosely (and I do mean loosely) adapted from Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel, which itself reimagines L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the 1939 film. So yes, this is a lot of reinterpretation layered on top of reinterpretation, and Part 2 is where it gets heavier.
The tone: darker, deeper, consequences
If you already know the stage show, this won’t shock you. If you only saw the first movie and haven’t touched the source material, consider this your warning: the sequel goes darker. Chu basically said the quiet part out loud shortly after Part 1 hit theaters in November 2024, and he was not being coy about it.
"If Part 1 is about choices, Part 2 is about consequences. Choices are difficult to make, but when you do make those choices, sometimes the result isn't what you expect it to be. It can be lonely, it can be hard... There's a lot of soul searching in movie 2. They're asking, 'Is this the right decision that you made?'"
That tracks with where the story is headed. This chapter leans into the fallout. It isn’t built to have the same breezy energy as the first film, because the narrative is paying off the setups and sitting with the results.
About the music (and the mood)
Part 1 delivered the big, bright showstoppers: Popular, Dancing Through Life, and the jaw-dropping Defying Gravity. Wicked: For Good still has plenty of songs, but more of them skew sadder and more melodramatic. It’s not a wall-to-wall sob fest, and there are still moments of joy, but the overall tone is more serious than the 2024 movie as the conclusion digs into heavier subject matter than what we got before.
Bottom line
Go in expecting a darker, more reflective finale that trades some sparkle for emotional weight. If you’re ready for consequences, not just choices, you’re in the right theater.