A Wicked Transformation

The Contemporary Movie-Musical and Its Frightening, Lasting Impact

With the unprecedented rise of Wicked (part one) in theaters and the increasing discussion of future musicals being translated to the big screen, it seems like it might be time to start thinking about what that means for traditionally staged pieces. Already grossing over 500 million dollars, John Chu’s screen adaptation of the beloved musical has become one of the biggest “movie events” of the year, and the second part is expected to do even better when it comes out next year. It appears, initially, inspiring to see stage actors like Cynthia Erivo and Ethan Slater (even Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande can be described as such) getting the love they so deserve for the incredible work they do that is often under-recognized due to the objectively small audience for staged productions. However, there is a dark side - while the conversations provoked are important, there’s something more sinister at play: the possible death of Broadway, or at least the stage play/musical as we know it.

The movie-musical is nothing new. We saw Gene Kelley, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire populate our screen throughout the 20th century, inspiring all things Disney (think Mary Poppins, Newsies, or any number of the princess stories they’ve created) and beyond, which made their way to the “great white way” and further. And yet, we never saw the response quite like we’ve seen for Wicked. This newfound fan base for the musical is exciting, for the moment. We, as the Broadway community, get to see others experience the transformative story of acceptance and polarized ostracization for the first time jealously, and access new discussions through this media in an intense time of need - it cannot be disputed that Wicked’s central story, about the abuse of power one man can exert, through propaganda consumed by an inquisitive, willing base, strikes an eerily relevant, scary chord as related to U.S. politics. However, the increase in important discussions doesn’t eliminate the more pressing concern that stage productions may only be made based on their wider, screen marketability, or disappear altogether.

For a while now, Broadway has been overtaken by a lack of “original” musicals. The recent greatest hits include pieces based on movies (Waitress, Mean Girls, Back to the Future, etc.), and while they are, often, great pieces of art, they rarely inspire new, original, or inspiring discussions of our modern state. Of course, a Broadway musical is rarely completely original (Wicked, itself, is based on a book, though that’s perhaps a separate discussion), but this increase in direct adaptations increasingly dilutes and overrides original content - we recently saw the new musical Swept Away close before it even had a chance to gain and grow an audience, even with The Avett Brothers attached. The true successful originals, Hamilton for example, are few and far between (and it seems Lin Manuel-Miranda’s already been in talks for the creation of a Hamilton movie…).

All this is to say that the lack of originality has been a defined problem for a while now, yet the Wicked movie may offer an out for some. The success and return on investment have been astronomical for those involved, yet it offers opportunity only to those established in the industry as leaders (Spongebob and Celie Harris being their big breaks) and creates a “standard” for the role going forward. Furthermore, the success of Wicked is what makes it so terrifying. We’ve had previous translations with less staying power (Les Mis and Mean Girls: the Musical: the Movie come to mind), but this movie’s financial gain serves as a case study for future, established musicals to translate their piece to the big screen. This means that the output of new, original content can only stagnate - the focus now must be on monetarily successful pieces that have or will build large audience bases that will show up at movie theaters, more reliably than the stage theaters.

In essence, we stand at a path divergence wherein we will either descend into the capitalistic machinations built to eliminate smart, important, revolutionary art by focusing on the large returns brought about by musicals-turned-movies in the same vein as Wicked, or we will find a way to reignite originality supplemented by the success of this and future adaptations, hoping for new, wider audience base. The questions that remain, for me, remain: What role have we played in the increased commercialization and commodification of Broadway? And why haven’t the important issues and ideas raised by musicals been discussed on a wider platform, beyond perhaps the classroom?