Wicked movie runtime has fans worried for one obvious reason

The yellow brick road to Oz is now open – and we’re going to be there a while. The Wicked movie runtime isn’t for the faint-hearted, and fans have been rightfully concerned.

If there’s online discourse to be had, the live-action adaptation of Wicked had it before its arrival. Stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have already made headlines of their own long before the film did.

Viral interviews and poster backlash have already been and gone, but now attention is turning to the new movie‘s runtime. Specifically, there’s one concern – how can Wicked justify being longer than the Broadway show?

Making its debut back in 2003 (you’ll remember the Wickedly talented Adele Dazeem here), the stage musical lasts for approximately three hours. That includes an interval of around 20 minutes.

Universal Pictures

But this time, we’re only getting half the story. Part 2 is set to be released in November 2025 – and while it doesn’t have an official runtime, it’s likely to tell the story’s second act.

“The entire Wicked musical is 2 hours and 45 minutes including a 15-minute intermission, so the musical is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Act 1 of the musical is 1 hour and 30 minutes,” one fan complained on Reddit.

“So the film has added another 1 hour and 10 minutes of material to the first half of this story. When I’ve heard people argue why the split was necessary, it was because the film would be too long without it, but that doesn’t appear to have been the issue, since Part 1 is longer than the entire show.”

A second agreed: “I hate this. One of the big issues with modern movie musicals is pacing. Turning the first act of a musical, with a runtime of an hour, into an hours-long movie is insane. I’m not going for talking. I’m going for singing and dancing. The film is going to feel like it’s going to drag.”

How long is the Wicked movie?

The Wicked movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, which as we’ve pointed out, is almost the same length of time as the entire Broadway musical.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know it hasn’t obviously been “padded out.” Instead of overloading us with new information, Wicked has simply taken more time to explore what we already know. It’s more likely that the new stuff – including new songs – will come in Part 2.

That’s going to hinge on one thing – the original book. If you hadn’t realized, both Wicked and The Wizard of Oz are based on novels, the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Cast your mind back to 1939 and the main movie’s less-than-two-hour runtime followed a very streamlined plot. Not every adaptation can include every detail from its source material, so there’s a high chance a lot of detail was left out.

Here’s where our extended two-part runtime sweeps in to get the glory. Without context, both movies might feel bloated, but it could provide some valuable context to the stories we already know.

Wicked Part 1 is out now. Check out its box office success, Broadway cameos, and why it has one huge problem. You can also catch up with new movies streaming this month and the best movies of the year so far.