Ariana Grande Promises to Tell the Witch of the West’s ‘Whole Story’ in New ‘Wicked’ Trailer: Watch
Written by djfrosty on September 5, 2024
Before she was the Wicked Witch of the West, she was just Elphaba — and Ariana Grande is here to tell her story.
In the second full-length trailer for the upcoming Wicked film, the pop star steps into her role as Glinda while recounting the untold tale of her green-skinned former frenemy to the citizens of Oz. “Fellow Ozians, the Wicked Witch of the West is dead!” she says, dressed in the Good Witch’s signature pink ball gown. “Let me tell you the whole story.”
“Our paths did cross at school,” Grande adds in the teaser, which cuts to previously unseen clips of Glinda and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba meeting at Shiz University, becoming pals and traveling to the Emerald City together. “She had her secrets.”
The trailer also features new snippets of the R.E.M. Beauty founder and Erivo belting out “Defying Gravity” together. “There’s no fight we cannot win, just you and I defying gravity,” they sing in unison.
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The new preview comes with just a couple months left until the first of the two Jon M. Chu-directed Wicked films arrives in theaters Nov. 22. It was preceded by several other teasers, while the first full trailer was shared by Universal Pictures in May.
To build hype ahead of the premiere, the Wicked team has also been rolling out collaborations with brands such as Mattel — which saw Grande and Erivo getting their own Barbie dolls — and partnered with NBC Olympics to bring the Emerald City train to life in a promo for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
Wicked has also shared multiple behind-the-scenes looks at the creation of the films, which are based on the Broadway musical and Gregory Maguire novel of the same name. In one, the “Yes, And?” musician and Erivo explained how their friendship offscreen translated to their portrayals onscreen.
“These two very different women just fall completely in love with each other, and that is mirrored experience of what happened with Cynthia and I,” Grande said.
Watch the new Wicked trailer above.