Wicked director Jon M. Chu showcases the film's "immersive" sets in a new video.
"We knew that we wanted Wicked to be immersive. What does it feel like to be in Oz? To feel it in your fingertips. If you want to be inside that world, you got to build it," Chu says.
The Wicked crew built real-life sets to create Emerald City, Munchkinland and other settings, as well as growing a field of 9 million tulips and building a 16-ton train. These tangible pieces were combined with special effects and visual effects to bring the world to life.
"All of this didn't just take production design. It took special effects, took visual effects. It's pretty mind blowing to think that it can go from drawings and ideas and a dream to sitting here today," Chu says.
Wicked is a musical fantasy film based on the Broadway musical and Gregory Maguire novel of the same name. The story is inspired by the L. Frank Baum novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and imagines the origin stories of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande star as Elphaba and Glinda, two students who meet at Shiz University in "the fantastical Land of Oz and forge an unlikely but profound friendship."
"Following an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives takes very different paths," an official synopsis reads.
Universal shared a trailer for the film in May and later released a "brickified" version using Legos.
Wicked will be split into two parts, with Part One to open in theaters Nov. 27 and Part Two to follow Nov. 27, 2025.
