The story was a winner, tracing back to when the two were budding witches at Shiz University and against all odds, forgot a friendship. When Wicked opened this week in cinemas, it’s a safe bet to say there’s a built-in audience that will flock to the theaters and make a beeline for the SM IMAX cinemas to enjoy an Oz-some, heightened experience of the musical. Proven and established intellectual property, such as hit Broadway musicals, have fans ready to absorb any iteration of the much-enjoyed creative content.
So, given that Wicked has been an all-time favorite on Broadway, it ensures that lovers of theater, musicals, and Broadway will all pledge their allegiance to the Wicked "altar." And why shouldn’t they? Based on the Gregory Maguire novel, which drew on the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, the Broadway musical of Schwartz and Holzman was a wonderful origin prequel to the much-loved film The Wizard of Oz.
And if Broadway had already produced a spin-off via The Wiz, which retold the story from an African-American perspective, this one of Wicked played on the notion of who was the Wicked Witch of the East, Elphaba, and the Good Witch of the North, Glinda, before the events of The Wizard of Oz? The story was a winner, tracing back to when the two were budding witches at Shiz University and against all odds, forgot a friendship. And when you had the magical songs of Schwartz and Holzman gaining a life of their own beyond the musical, everything was.