Are the Wicked movies ending with For Good? Here’s the tea
Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers from the Wicked books and both acts of the Broadway musical.
Following the release of the first Wicked movie, fans immediately started theorizing, speculating, and wishfully thinking that this film franchise wouldn’t end with the Wicked: For Good sequel. But given how conclusive the second act of the 2003 Broadway musical is, this speculation eventually moved into the literary universe created by writer Gregory Maguire in the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
During an interview to promote his latest novel, Elphie: A Wicked Childhood, Maguire was asked if he had any comments about these rumored new movies, or perhaps even TV shows, set in the Wicked world that he’s built for the past three decades.
“If there are conversations — and I’m not saying that there aren’t — if there are conversations, they’re not conversations that involve me directly. So I don’t know, really. I don’t know,” Maguire told Out.
“I understand that there’s a lot of interest in Universal about the magnificent property they’ve developed,” the Wicked and Elphie author went on. “You probably saw there’s notions of a Wicked area of Universal theme parks. And god knows there’s been enough Wicked merch. To date, I have sold the rights to one novel and one novel only, and that’s Wicked.”
Maguire added, “And if I never sell the rights to anything else, so be it. The truth is, of course, as you know, the novel of Wicked ends very differently from the play and from the movie. All the characters are in different places at the end of my novel than they are at the end of the play.”
Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda in the Wicked movies.Universal Pictures
“For one thing,” Maguire explains, “there’s this 14-year-old boy named Liir who is the love child of Fiyero and Elphaba, and that sure doesn’t happen on the stage by the end of Wicked. And so, therefore, all the trajectories of my characters will have to be different from the characters that might conceivably be spawned from a Universal interpretation. But if they were my characters originally, then you can’t write another sentence about Madame Morrible and invent something about her, because she’s under copyright. And you can’t do Elphaba again, and call her Elphaba, because she’s under copyright.”
Maguire remarks, “What I gave were the rights to use my original novel as inspiration for their project, and they’ve used that.”
If approached by the studio and producers to expand the Wicked franchise on the big screen, would he be open to it?
“I might be,” Maguire tells Out. “But a) I’m not greedy; and b) I’m frugal. I don’t need anything more. And what if I didn’t like what was being proposed? Or if I thought, ‘Why? Will this dilute this moral tale? Or is it just money-grabbing?’”
The novelist concludes, “I wouldn’t say I am absolutely closed to it. But I wouldn’t say I am hanging around the phone hoping that somebody rings, either.”
(L) The cover art for Gregory Maguire’s 2025 novel Elphie: A Wicked Childhood; (R) Gregory Maguire, author, poses for a photo.Willam Morrow; Helen Maguire Newman
After a record-breaking first Wicked movie — and prior to the release of the Wicked: For Good sequel being hailed as the “epic conclusion” of this two-part cinematic saga — the discourse about more Wicked movies with the involvement of director Jon M. Chu alongside actors Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba), Ariana Grande (Glinda), and Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero) has been raging on.
That chatter, compounded with rumors that Wicked: For Good might have a different ending from the Broadway musical, prompted even casual fans to theorize that this could become an actual film franchise for Universal Pictures.
In fact, Wicked composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, along with screenwriter Winnie Holzman — both of whom originated the Broadway musical and had direct involvement in the two movies — had a different answer when asked about the potential to grow a Wicked cinematic universe.
During the promo cycle for the first Wicked movie, Oz Historian Ryan Jay asked Schwartz and Holzman if they would consider more sequels beyond what was then still named Wicked: Part Two — and is now officially titled Wicked: For Good — in an interview for The Morning Blend TMJ4.
“We already got a franchise,” Jay remarked. “What will it take to get Wicked part three, and four?”
Schwartz replied, “We’re actually talking about something. It’s under wraps, and we can’t say [much].”
“But it’s not Wicked part three or four,” Holzman noted.
Schwartz agreed. “But there is something we’re talking about,” the composer and lyricist teased.
Wicked: For Good opens in theaters on November 21
